PEMRA spokesman terms private members meeting illegal

ISLAMABAD: The spokesman of Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority (PEMRA) has termed today’s (May 20) meeting of its private members and their decisions as illegal.

The PEMRA spokesman’s clarification in an official statement came after reports of a meeting of five private members of the authority in which they decided to forward recommendations seeking to suspend the licenses of Geo News, Geo Tez and Geo Entertainment.

It was also reported that the private members of PEMRA forwarded to the authority's Council of Complaints (COC) their recommendations seeking to suspend Geo’s three licenses and to seal its offices.

The PEMRA statement said that today’s meeting was called without following the laid down procedures and thus had no legal standing.

“According to Rule 3(4) of PEMRA Rules 2009, the Chairman or as the case may be more than half of the total members can call the meeting i.e. out of 12 members at least 7 members can call a meeting,” the statement clarified.

The PEMRA spokesman said that the authority will summon its next meeting after receiving the viewpoint of the Ministry of Law on the issue. This decision had already been taken in PEMRA’s meeting held on May 9, he added.

Earlier, 5 out of 12 private members of PEMRA held a meeting which was participated by Israr Abbasi, Mian Shams, Shama Parveen Magsi, Zaiba Hassan and Fareeha Iftikhar.

Shortly after the meeting, the PEMRA spokesman declared it illegal and disowned the decisions made by the participants.