Stand-up comedian Kunal Kamra on Friday (September 20) reacted to the Bombay High Court calling the amendments made to the IT rules as "unconstitutional". Kamra shared the preamble of the Constitution and posted, "They may keep trying, but we the people of India will always uphold the constitution to humble those who are drunk on Power."
Bombay HC judge JS Chandurkar gave the "tiebreaker judgement" in Kunal Kamra vs Govt of India matter where the stand-up comedian had challenged a new fact check unit proposed by the government of India. Justice Chandurkar ruled that this new fact-check unit will violate articles 14 and 19 of the Constitution of India.
Earlier the matter was decided by two- judge bench of Justice Patel and Justice Neela Gokhale and they had given split verdict on 31st January 2024. So as per rules, the matter was referred to Justice Chandurkar for his tie-breaker opinion and he has given his verdict today.
Kunal Kamra also shared a detailed post on X (formerly Twitter) a day after the verdict in which he lauded the Bombay High Court's order and narrated why he approached the court as a petitioner in this matter.
The HC made the comments when it was dealing with a batch of petitions, including by stand-up artist Kunal Kamra, challenging the rules.
In a setback to the Centre, the Bombay High Court struck down the amendment to the Information Technology Act which gave power to the Centre to set up a Fact Check Unit (FCU) to identify "fake, false or misleading content" against the government on social media and online platforms. The court termed the amendments to the rule as "unconstitutional".