Two new petitions have been filed in the Bombay High Court challenging the recent amendment to the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021 (IT Rules 2021), including a provision for a fact-checking unit (FCU) to flag fake or false or misleading online content related to the government.
The new petitions filed by the Editors Guild of India (EGI) and the Association of Indian Magazines (AIM) claim that the Rules are arbitrary and unconstitutional. Senior counsel Kapil Sibal appeared for EGI and advocate Aditi Saxena appeared for AIM.
Kunal Kamra's petition
Following these petitions, the Centre said it won’t notify till July 10 the FCU to identify fake news against the government on social media. The earlier intimated date for the notification was July 5. The statement was made by additional solicitor general (ASG) Anil Singh during the hearing in a petition filed by stand-up comedian Kunal Kamra challenging the constitutional validity of the Information Technology Rules.
A division bench of Justices Gautam Patel and Neela Gokhale has kept all three petitions for hearing on July 6. The court has requested counsels in all the three petitions to coordinate and not repeat the arguments.
Earlier, an affidavit was filed by the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) stating that the Union government’s impending FCU may only direct removal of false or misleading information pertaining to government policies and programmes, not satire or artist impression.
Another affidavit filed by the government said the Rules do not give power to the FCU to order the removal of any information on an intermediary’s platform. “Just like knowingly and intentionally communicating patently false, untrue and misleading information/ content is an anathema to the right of free speech, passing the same content as true information through deceptive and delusory means is the biggest abuse of free speech,” it said.
The Centre’s Affidavit…
The Rules do not give power to the FCU to order the removal of any information on an intermediary’s platform.
The only change the Rules make is to hold the intermediary preliminarily responsible to check the content without any obligation to either take it down or block it.
The government is not supposed to be the final arbiter or decision-maker as to whether any content is patently false, untrue or misleading.
The final arbiter for adjudicating whether any information is false and misleading is a court.
Social media can also be used for “devastating public mischief, creating law and order problems, and spreading chaos in the country”.
