Employees of the premier news agency UNI have won an important victory in their nine-month long, persistent struggle to prevent take-over of the agency by Subhash Chandra, owner of the Essel Group, chairman of Zee telefilms, and owner of the Mumbai newspaper DNA. The Board of Directors of UNI has been forced to cancel the appointments of the directors who had been illegally brought in by the so-called Empowered Committee formed by Subhash Chandra, to facilitate his take-over of UNI. The take-over plans of Subhash Chandra and his cohorts have suffered a setback, due to the determined opposition of the UNI employees.

As reported earlier in People’s Voice, the UNI employees, led by their Joint Action Committee, have been vigorously opposing the deal to sell 60% of UNI shares for Rs. 34 crores to Subhash Chandra. This deal was struck with the help of certain directors appointed illegally by the UNI management, at the behest of Subhash Chandra.

The UNI employees have opposed the deal as this would endanger the independent, non-partisan and all-India character of UNI, which, along with PTI, was set up as a trust with the purpose of preventing a monopoly in the supply of news. It may be recalled that in the UNI, a number of newspapers have shareholdings, but no one news paper has a majority shareholding. UNI and PTI have been essentially run as non-profit institutions, breaking even through subscriptions from the government and private news channels and newspapers.

The UNI employees have also questioned on what basis the control of land and other assets given to UNI under the Section 25 of the Companies Act, 1956 at subsidised rates, can be handed over to a private monopoly for profiteering? The total assets of UNI are conservatively valued at Rs 1000 crores, with the prime land at Rafi Marg near Parliament itself estimated to be worth Rs 200 crores. The attempted take-over of UNI would also enable Zee telefilms to establish monopoly control over news and newspapers in different parts of the country.

Despite the efforts of the UNI management to crush the struggle of the UNI employees through suspensions and transfers as well as the threat of mass retrenchment, the UNI employees have valiantly continued their principled struggle in defence of their institution. Under the banner of Citizens for UNI, they have held dharnas, gate meetings, demonstrations to the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting and public conventions, in which political and social activists, journalists, writers, and media persons have participated in large numbers, in support of the demands of the UNI workers.

In December 2006, the Company Law Board, in which some of the directors of the UNI had challenged the take-over bid, declared in its first hearing that the deal to sell 60% of UNI shares for 34 crores to Subhash Chandra was prima facie illegal. The directors who were responsible for pushing through the illegal deal were asked to present their case within three weeks. The verdict of the Company Law Board is awaited.

The UNI employees are demanding a review of various recruitments made by Subhash Chandra and his cohorts, in an attempt to bring in his loyalists, as part of the take-over bid. They are also demanding that victimization of leaders of the agitation be immediately stopped and cases filed by the management against the agitating employees at the Tis Hazari Courts be withdrawn.

People’s Voice congratulates the UNI employees and wishes them success in their resolute struggle, which is not only a struggle to preserve the independence and integrity of their institution, but also a struggle in the larger social interest.