Cheat Sheet for Penalties under the Broadcasting Bill, 2023

tl;dr

The Broadcasting Bill, 2023 lists penalties in the First and Third Schedule, i.e. penalties for contravention of provisions not relating to (Clause 34) and relating to (Clause 35) the Programme Code and Advertisement Code and for contravention of Programme Code and Advertisement Code and the penalties and imprisonment terms for contravention of provisions of this Act (Clause 33) respectively. Given the wide-ranging consequences on fundamental rights due to the 2023 Bill, we are releasing this analysis for the benefit of stakeholders, primarily digital creators, to highlight the liability the Broadcasting Bill may impose on them and the impact on their livelihood. 

Important documents

1. Draft Broadcasting Services (Regulation) Bill, 2023 (link)
2. Archived unofficial copy of the Broadcasting Bill, 2024 (link)
3. Cheat Sheet on the Penalties under the Broadcasting Bill, 2024 (link)
4. LetUsChill.in (link)
5. IFF’s analysis on reported revisions and opaque consultation process (link and link)
6. IFF’s Initial Analysis of the Broadcasting Bill, 2023 (link)
7. IFF’s Detailed Comments on the Broadcasting Bill, 2023 (link)

Navigating the Cheat Sheet

Reported revisions in the 2024 Bill: The Ministry of Information and Broadcasting (“MIB”) had reportedly circulated a watermarked copy of the revised draft Broadcasting Services (Regulation) Bill, 2024 (“Broadcasting Bill, 2024” or “2024 Bill”) with a select set of stakeholders after holding private, closed-door meetings with them. Although the 2024 Bill was never officially published by MIB, several unofficial copies of the 2024 Bill were circulated online. Since this version had not been authenticated, we could not know for certain if the penalties listed in the copy were accurate and final. Further, multiple news outlets recently reported that MIB asked the privileged stakeholders, with whom it shared the 2024 Bill copy with, to return physical copies of the Broadcasting Bill, 2024 “without any feedback”. Reports also suggested that MIB is “withdrawing”/”reconsidering” the 2024 Bill. Although MIB put out a statement post the publication of these reports, it neither acknowledged the 2024 draft nor clarified any of the other questions raised by stakeholders regarding the closed-door consultations or the revisions to the Bill. Thus, in light of these developments, we have relied on the penalties listed under the 2023 draft as that is the only publicly available, official version of the Broadcasting Bill. In certain instances, we have also inserted relevant analysis about reported revisions in the 2024 Bill and the implications it would have. 

Under the 2024 Bill, the penalties are listed in the First and Second Schedule – the First Schedule lists the penalties and imprisonment terms for contravention of provisions of this Act (Clause 33) and the Second Schedule lists penalties for contravention of provisions other than those related to Programme Code and Advertisement Code (Clause 34) and for contravention of Programme Code and Advertisement Code (Clause 35). Specific changes/ revisions within the Schedules have been noted and analysed in the cheat sheet.  

Classification for application of penalties: The 2023 Bill does not envision a uniform application of penalties as it classifies persons into four categories – Micro, Small, Medium, and Major – and limits/restricts the listed penalties to 2%, 5%, 50%, and 100% of the listed amount respectively. The listed penalties are the maximum penalties applicable to persons falling under the ‘Major’ category as per the classification. Once the categories for a person are determined, the category attracting a higher maximum penalty will be applicable. Classification into these categories is dependent on the financial capacity of the person and is determined based on their “annual turnover and investments separately”.  

Note: The listed penalties in the 2023 Bill are the maximum penalties applicable to persons falling under the ‘Major’ category as per the classification. Since that is not the penalty that will be applicable for other categories of persons, we have calculated the maximum penalty applicable to the Micro, Small, and Medium categories for the first and subsequent offence respectively in our cheat sheet.