IT Guidelines: Delhi HC refuses to grant interim safety from coercive motion to digital media portals

The Delhi Supreme Court on July 7th refused to protect digital media portals from coercive measures as it postponed their challenge to the new IT rules after it was told that the center had filed a request for a transfer to the Supreme Court .

“Transfer request was preferred?” a bench owned by Chief Justice DN Patel and Judge Jyoti Singh asked additional Attorney General Vikramjit Banerjee, who replied “Yes”.

The court then adjourned The Wire, Quint Digital Media Ltd.’s pleas. and Pravda Media Foundation until August 20.

According to the changed IT rules, social media and streaming companies must remove contentious content faster, appoint complaints officers and help with investigations.

Senior advocate Nitya Ramakrishnan, who appeared for the portals, asked the court to issue an injunction on the grounds that the central government had not even responded to petitions submitted by digital media portals.

“The rules have been announced and they have not submitted a response. Now they are asking me to report back to them. This is the first step in submitting the discipline [of regulation of content by government]. Please listen to my application for residence and give me protection, ”she said.

She added that the central government’s behavior “was completely at odds with the Supreme Court’s decision that state regulation of media content is unacceptable”.

In response, the additional attorney general Chetan Sharma said that “1,700 digital media have already transmitted information” according to IT rules.

“It is not a question of voting,” said Ms. Ramakrishnan, explaining that the digital media portals would have preferred to challenge the new IT rules in court.

However, the court refused to issue an order and directed the center to file an affidavit.

The Supreme Court had previously issued notices and solicited responses from the Center to petitions from the Foundation for Independent Journalism, The Wire, Quint Digital Media Ltd, and Pravda Media Foundation, the parent company of Alt News.

However, the bank had refused to issue an injunction, saying it would be examined at a later date.

The petition from Quint Digital Media Ltd. and its director and co-founder, Ritu Kapur, has questioned the constitutional validity of IT rules under the provisions of the Information Technology Act of 2000 insofar as they purport to apply to and regulate “news and current affairs publishers” as part of digital media Institutions thus comply with the rules by imposing state supervision and a code of ethics that lays down such vague conditions as good taste “, decency” and the prohibition of half-truths “.

“Creating a differentiated classification through subordinate legislation, if this is not provided for in the overarching IT law, is in itself excessive, and this was done to target digital news portals by exposing them to an unprecedented regulatory burden and government intervention, which is not subject to any other form of publication of news, “it said.

It claimed that virtual law-enforcement legislation exacerbated this transgression by referral as the rules incorporate the journalistic norms of the Press Council Act, the Programming Code of the Cable Television Act, and give draconian powers and control to the state.

The pleas in law sought the deletion of the specific part of the IT rules on the grounds that it violated Articles 19 (1) (a) and 19 (1) (g) of the Constitution and had a deterrent effect on freedom of the media, Article 14 of the Constitution through the creation of an inadequate classification and through the establishment of a parallel judicial mechanism overseen by the officers of the executive branch and is ultra vires of the IT law.

The rules for 2021 regulate the functioning of online media portals and publishers, over-the-top platforms (OTT) and social media intermediaries.