The Bombay High Court has observed that, before considering the impact of the amendments to the Information Technology (IT) Rules on the fundamental rights of citizens, it is first necessary to know the scope and limits of the words ‘fake,’ ‘false’ and ‘misleading’.
Can an opinion on any policy of the government be called misleading?
The court asked whether opinion and editorial content on any policy of the government can also be called misleading. Is it lawful to give immense and unlimited powers to a discretionary administration? The bench will continue hearing the matter on July 13 as well.
Earlier, the central government has assured the court that it will not notify the FCU till July 10. The bench said on Friday that till July 14, the government should stick to this statement. A division bench of Justices Gautam Patel and Neela Gokhale on Friday heard several petitions challenging the IT rules.
These IT rules empower the central government to identify fake, false and misleading posts against the government and its functioning on the internet media. The petitions filed in the High Court by standup comedian Kunal Kamra, Editors Guild of India and Association of Indian Magazines against these new IT rules stated that these IT rules are arbitrary and unconstitutional.
These petitions state that it will have a chilling effect on the fundamental rights of the citizens. The bench said that first we need to know that if the scope and limits of the words ‘false, fake and misleading’ are fixed then we need not get influenced by it.
Action will be taken if the content or information is found to be fake, false or misleading
The bench also wanted to know what comes under the ambit of government work and what is not? The court said that as per the rules, action will be taken if any content or information is found to be fake, false or misleading. This will also be determined by the Fact Checking Unit (FCU) in this case.
He has got the rights to decide whether any information is false or not. We are also concerned about the jurisdiction of the FCU as per the IT Rules. The court said that we have a problem with the fact on what basis one can say that this thing is completely wrong.