The judgment emphasizes the need to balance conflicting interests and the doctrine of proportionality in regulating access to the Parliament, and refrains from considering the challenge to the decision of the Media Advisory Committee taken in 2011.

JUDGMENT

Navin Chawla, J. - The petitioner by way of the present petition challenges the decision of the Media Advisory Committee of the Rajya Sabha (hereinafter referred to as MAC) taken in the meeting held on 06.07.2017 restricting the issuance of passes to the journalist under the freelance category to only sessional passes thereby discontinuing its earlier practice of issuing an annual pass to the journalist under the freelance category. The petitioner further prays for a Writ of Mandamus directing the respondents to issue a permanent pass to the petitioner for covering the proceedings of the Rajya Sabha.

2. The petitioner claims himself to be a freelance journalist with an extensive and long career having various contributions based on his reporting of the Indian Parliament. He claims that in 1990, the petitioner was granted a pass to cover the proceedings in the Bihar Legislative Assembly as a freelance journalist. He claims to have been covering the proceedings in the Rajya Sabha as well as the Lok Sabha since 1991 as also appearing on various news channels, contributing to several news portals, newspapers, etc. The petitioner further claims to have delivered lectures for three years at the Indian Institute of Mass Communication (IIMC) and claims to be the editor of two monthly journals, namely Mass Media and Jan Media, published in English and Hindi respectively. He also claims to have authored a book titled "Sansad Aise Chalti Hai".

3. In the meeting of the MAC held on 23.01.2009, the request of the petitioner for issuance of a permanent Rajya Sabha Press Gallery Pass was considered and accepted observing as under:

"Permanent/Sessional Passes Freelance Journalists

9. The Committee in its meeting held on 19 September 2008 observed that a known freelance journalists who had been contributing regularly in various newspapers might also be considered for permanent/sessional Rajya Sabha Press Gallery passes. The Committee would consider such a request keeping in view the valuable contribution of the journalist. Accordingly, the request of Shri Anil Chamaria a freelance journalist for permanent Rajya Sabha Press Gallery pass was considered by the Committee. The Committee while acceding to his request observed that Shri Chamaria, a well known journalist had been writing regularly in various newspapers. The Committee, however, observed that Shri Chamaria''s request for a permanent pass may be treated as a special case and may not be cited as precedent in future."

4. The petitioner held the Permanent Rajya Sabha Press Gallery till the Impugned Decision taken by the MAC on 06.07.2017.

5. The petitioner challenges the above decision on the ground that the said decision is not only violative of the Fundamental Right of the petitioner guaranteed under Article 19(1)(a) of the Constitution of India but also under Article 14 inasmuch as it fails to give any reasonable basis for treating the freelance journalist as a separate category from the accredited journalist for issuance of the Rajya Sabha Press Gallery Pass. It is contended that Impugned Decision seeks to create a divide and treat freelance journalists unequally and as being inferior to those journalists who are affiliated to media houses or news agencies. The learned senior counsel for the petitioner has placed reliance on the judgments of the Supreme Court in Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) (P) Ltd. v. Union of India, (1985) 1 SCC 641 and Naveen Jain v. Union of India & Ors., (2019) AIR SC 5087 in support of his submissions.

6. On the other hand, it is the case of the respondents that the freelance journalists were not being given annual/sessional Press Gallery Passes till 2008. The MAC in its meeting held on 19.09.2008 decided to consider the request from freelance journalists of repute for issuance of sessional/annual Rajya Sabha Press Gallery Pass based on merit, on a case-to-case basis. Accordingly, in 2009, the petitioner and three other journalists were recommended fo