By IANS,
New Delhi : The Delhi High Court Friday issued notice to the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) and the Ministry of Defence (MoD) asking them to explain why a defence magazine was denied participation in the upcoming Aero India 2009 show.
A bench of Justice G.S. Sistani issued the notice after the editor of Strategic Affairs, a defence magazine, filed a petition alleging discrimination against the magazine in the Aero India show, organised every alternate year by the MoD and the CII.
The court also stayed the selection process of the participants till further orders and asked the two organisers to file their replies by Dec 1, the next date of hearing.
The magazine in its plea alleged it was denied participation after it had published an article in February highlighting healthy criticism of the show.
Counsel for the petitioner R. Venkatraman argued that this amounted to infringement of fundamental rights to freedom of speech and expression guaranteed under the constitution.