Keywords: Bombay High Court, Information Technology Rules, Amendment, Fact Check Units Bombay High Court on friday remarked that the Government is not a repsitory of truth that cannot be questioned, while hearing a batch of petition challenging amendments to the
Technology Rules of 2023 which provided for formation of Fact Check Units (FCUs).
The Division Bench of Justice GS Patel and Justice Neela Gokhale questioned if the government body can decide what is false as well as the need for a government to have such regulations. “One may be right to say that these Rules are excessive. You cannot bring a hammer to kill an ant. But leaving this excessive part aside, I still don’t understand what was the concern that necessitates this amendment,” Justice Patel said.
The court also said that citizens have the power to ask questions from the government and government must answer. “In the democratic process, the essence of discourse is that the government is as much a participant as a citizen is. It is not a repository of truth that cannot be questioned. It is a fundamental right to doubt, to question, to demand answers from government and it is duty of government to respond.”
Under the recent amendments to the Information Technology Rules (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Amendment Rules, 2023, Rule 3 specifically empowered FCUs to identify and tag what it considered was ‘false or fake online news’ with respect to any of the government’s activities.
The Court reiterated that the fundamental right to speech under Article 19(1)(a) included a right to be defend the correctness of a statement made and therefore, a body shouldn’t classify what is ‘truth’ and what is not. The bench also questioned the degree of power conferred to Fact Check Units (FCUs). “This power identified by the FCU to find out misleading, fake. I am asking whether a court can do it?
We are trying to understand this. Who fact checks the FCUs? I want to know what the boundary is. I do not know what the boundary is. Because then I do not know what is being tested under 19(2).”
From July 29, Solicitor General Tushar Mehta will commence arguments on behalf of the Union
Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology.
Written by Kartik Sharma, a student of National Law University, Shimla (first semester), anintern under Legal Vidhiya
