The Kerala High Court has restrained the Central government from taking any coercive action against LiveLaw under Part III of the Information Technology (Guidelines for Intermediaries And Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021, in a plea challenging its constitutional validity. The bench of Justice PV Asha has also issued notice to the Centre in the matter.
LiveLaw, a legal news online portal and has stated in its plea that the regulatory mechanism under the Rules are invasive, disproportionate and arbitrary; and cannot be said to be reasonable restrictions under Article 19(2) of the Constitution.
“We are reporting judgments. Somebody to whom the judgment is not palatable, may make a grievance, and we are required to sit in appeal over the content”, submitted Advocate Santhosh Mathew for the petitioner.
He further pointed out that the Rules are “undoing the procedural safeguards ensured by the Supreme Court in the Shreya Singhal judgment for intermediary regulation”. He further illustrated possible situations the petitioner might find itself in, “Mr. A is writing an article. Somebody takes an objection. I am obliged to take it down. It could be a retired Supreme Court judge writing the article. I cannot issue a notice to him. This can put us in a lot of embarrassing situations”.
Counsel for the Central government, Suvin Menon, argued that the Rules derive their power from Sections 69A and 69B of the IT Act and said that since 2010 social media activism had increased and many news outlets had emerged which needed to be held accountable. When the bench remarked that law reporting should be exempted from the same, Menon responded that there are articles, apart from law reporting which are contemptuous.
The petitioner also contended that the self-regulatory contemplated under the Rules is “at the mercy of the Central government” and highlighted how the Rules imposes onerous conditions on small organisations like the petitioner, who will be now obliged to appoint a full time grievance redressal officer to deal with complaints within 24 hours. The petitioner also asserted that section 69A of the IT Act concerns only with intermediaries and cannot be used to regulate digital media.
A similar petition challenging the validity of the Rules, being ultra vires of its parent Act has been filed by online news portal, ‘The Wire’ before the Delhi High Court, which has also issued notice to the central government.
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