Trisha Ghosh, Pune
The Congress on Saturday strongly approved the Bombay High Court’s rejection of amendments to Information Technology rules, which were intended to identify and curb ‘fake and false’ content against the government on social media. The rejection came on Friday after the court observed that the new rules violated the constitutional rights of Indian citizens to freedom of speech as well as equality.
The court stated that the rules were too ‘vague’ and could easily hurt both individuals and intermediaries on social media platforms. The ruling was given by Justice A S Chandurkar. The Congress termed the proposed amendment to the rules, which had intended to identify allegedly fake content via a Fact-Checking Unit (FCU), as a ‘bizarre joke’. If passed, the amended rules would allow the unit to flag certain types of online content as ‘misleading’ or ‘false’.
Jairam Ramesh, the general secretary-in-charge of communications of the Congress, posted on X (link: https://x.com/Jairam_Ramesh/status/1837362858440405282), criticizing the government’s intentions of developing such a unit for fact-checking purposes. He further accused the government of attempting to spread a ‘unique brand of lies’.
Pawan Khera, the head of the Congress Department of media and Publicity, stated, regarding the ruling, that no one had taken the prospect of a fact-checking unit seriously, including persons from the government. The high court’s ruling was also supported by the CPI (M) in a post on X lauding the court’s prevention of the Modi government’s alleged attempts to curb freedom of speech and critique.
The HC ruled that the amended rules violated Article 14 (right to equality), Article 19 (freedom of speech and expression), and Article 19(1)(g) (freedom to practice any profession). Meanwhile, Rule 3(1)(b)(5) is the provision regarding the establishment of fact-checking units, and was declared to be ‘ultra vires’ — that is, beyond the legal authority scope — as per the Constitution.
The new regulations were strongly opposed by various media organizations, including the Editors Guild of India and the News Broadcast and Digital Association. The Association of Indian Magazines had filed a petition in the Bombay High Court regarding the same.