New IT Rules: SC gives petitioner a week’s time to study it

The Supreme Court on Monday gave a week’s time for a petitioner to study the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules of 2021 to confirm whether or not it addresses the problem of communally delicate content material posted on social media platforms.

A Bench led by Chief Justice of India (CJI) N.V. Ramana even advised that the petitioner, advocate Khaja Aijazuddin, may method the federal government.

Mr. Aijazuddin stated he had moved the apex courtroom on the suggestion of the Telangana High Court. He sought instructions to the federal government to restrain social media platforms from carrying Islamophobic content material on their timelines and to direct a CBI or NIA probe towards Twitter and its customers concerned in placing out “inflammatory posts”. The petition referred to how “massive publicity was given by the media that many of the positive cases of symptoms of coronavirus were found from Tablighi Jamaat at Nizamuddin in Delhi”.

The petition contended “there was a massive trending of tweets on Twitter attaching the Muslim religion to the cause of spread of coronavirus”. He stated he was “aggrieved with trending on Twitter under the name and styled #Islamiccoronavirusjihad, etc”. It amounted to selling hatred towards a explicit faith, which is a legal offence each underneath the Indian Penal Code and the Information Technology Act of 2000.

‘Frame specific guidelines’

The petition, filed in May, requested the courtroom to direct the federal government to body particular pointers underneath the Information Technology Act of 2000 about “hate messages against any religious community including Islamophobic posts on various social media platforms”.

The Bench, additionally comprising Justice A.S. Bopanna, addressed Mr. Aijazuddin, “Have you not examined the recent IT Rules… it takes care of this…”

The petitioner, nonetheless, argued that the Rules didn’t “consider religion but only defamatory content”.

The CJI stated, “Have you read the latest Rules? Please do your homework and come… list after a week”.

The new Rules was notified on February 25 underneath the Information Technology Act of 2000. It regulates social intermediaries, content material on digital media and addresses cyber-crime. It comes instead of the Information Technology (Intermediate Guidelines) Rules of 2011.

Already, the totally different points of the brand new Rules are underneath judicial scanner. The authorities has just lately moved the apex courtroom to switch the instances pending towards it from numerous High Courts to it. On July 9, a Bench of Justices A.M. Khanwilkar and Sanjiv Khanna tagged the federal government’s switch plea to a pending particular depart petition titled ‘Justice for Rights Foundation versus Union of India’. The Justice Khanwilkar Bench had stated the case can be listed earlier than an applicable Bench on July 16.

The authorities’s switch petition is probably going to come up earlier than a Bench led by Justice D.Y. Chandrachud on July 16. The ‘Justice for Rights Foundation’ case is pending earlier than Justice this Bench and primarily issues the regulation of content material proven on over-the-top (OTT) platforms. This Bench has been analyzing the problem within the backdrop of the brand new IT Rules. On March 23 this 12 months, the Bench had stayed all proceedings in High Courts relating to the problem.

The authorities has, nonetheless, maintained within the apex courtroom that the IT Rules present a “comprehensive” mechanism to verify content material on the OTT platforms. The Ministry stated in a latest affidavit that the Rules was based mostly on a globally recognised mannequin.