Dr Subramanian Swamy now raised a question about the usage of the word ‘Republic’ by Arnab Goswami for his new Television Channel ‘Republic’
Dr Swamy now writes to I&B, says use of name ‘Republic’ for a channel is contrary to the law.
–Arnab Goswami’s much hyped English News Channel ‘Republic’ is getting ready to be launched tomorrow on India’s Republic Day i.e 26th January 2017 but appears to be not a smooth sailing. Now a Damocle’s sword started hanging over the head of Mr Aranb.
Not from no where, but very much from our vicinity, our conventional ring leader Dr Subramanian Swamy has posed a threat by raising concerns over use of the word “Republic” for the upcoming channel. He has written to the ministry of Information and Broadcasting to look into the use of the word ‘Republic’ and “determine if it is prohibited to issue a license under such a name” citing ‘The Emblems and Names (Prevention of Improper Use) Act 1950’
Dr Swamy has cited in this connection, the use of word “Republic” under item 6 of the schedule appended to the Act.
This prompted me to quickly glance the act once, to get to know the bona fide status of his concern. To my surprise I found Dr Swamy’s objection is unjustified and misconstrued too.
The very scope of the act ‘The Emblems And Names (Prevention Of Improper Use) Act, 1950’ is to prevent the improper use of certain emblems and names for professional and commercial purposes. This means some exclusive emblems, names associated with the Constitution of India, and Republic of India, can not be used in public for professional, and commercial purposes.
But hold on; not the very word ‘Republic’ per se-is listed in the prohibited list of words. The word Republic is just like any other names like the ‘President’, ‘Governor’, ‘Chairman’ etc . If that were to be the situation, then the word ‘President’ can’t be used as heads of Apartment welfare Societies, heads of Chamber of Commerce, heads of Lions Club, Rotary Clubs etc.
And what about the manufacturing company ‘Republic Forge’ ? it’s purely a commercial concern.
To prove my point, lets directly go through the said schedule 6 appended to the act.
It reads as below.
The Schedule
6. The name, emblem or official seal of the President, Governor,5[***] 6[Sadar-i-Riyasat] or Republic or Union of India.]
Now Dr Swamy is pointing his finger at the word ‘Republic’ in this line. (in bold Italics )
A careful reading suggests the word Republic here, is not listed as one of many words that have been prohibited ones.
This should be read in continuation from the beginning of Sl No 6.
It should be read in it’s entirety like
The name of the President;
The name of the Governor,
The name of the Sadar-i-Riyasat or Republic or Union of India.
Hence what is prohibited is name, (emblem or official seal) of the above 5, but not the very words ‘President’ ‘Governor’ ‘Republic’ etc
Also, the fact is, after the word Governor, the word OR is used between the words Sadar-i-Riyasat and Republic and
between the words Republic and Union of India.
Hence it should be construed in a way to mean that, the very proper noun’s and names of President, Governor, Republic or Union of India usage is prohibited but not the very words (noun’s) per se, are prohibited.
If the intention of the legislation is to prohibit the use of phrases like ‘Republic’ ‘President’ , ‘Governor’ etc then they would have enlisted these phrases straight away in the schedule , as prohibited phrase. Since Republic is a general English noun, no authority can prohibit such English phrases for use in commercial parlor.
So what is prohibited is the possible use of proper nouns of past or present Presidents, Governor’s but not the very words like’ ‘President’ or ‘Governor’ etc.
So in my view Mr Arnab Goswami can go ahead with his Channel ‘Republic’ without hesitation and I am optimistic that the legal fraternity too will opine in similar way as I explained above.
