The Bombay High Court on March 11 refused to issue an interim stay on the formation of a Fact-Check Unit (FCU) by the Union government.
A single-judge Bench of Justice A.S. Chandurkar, the tie-breaker judge in the case after a split verdict was delivered by the court on January 31, said “no case was made out” for the Union government to continue its position that “it would not notify the FCU pending hearing of petitions” against the IT Rules.
The interim application was filed by satirist Kunal Kamra, the Editors Guild of India, the Association of Indian Magazines and News Broadcast and Digital Association, seeking stay on the notification for formation of the FCU. The Central government’s Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Amendment Rules, 2023 rules empower it to establish an FCU to identify fake, false and misleading information about the government’s business on social media platforms.
“In my opinion, no case has been made out to direct that the statement made on behalf of the non-applicants that the fact-check unit should not be notified, should be continued during present proceedings as an order of the court. It is clarified that this opinion is only on a prima facie consideration of the issues that arise and have been made in context of the prayers of the interim application. The interim applications should now be placed before the referral bench for appropriate orders,” said Justice Chandurkar.
Asked shortly after the judgement if the government would now notify the FCU ahead of the general election, Minister of Electronics and Information Technology Ashwini Vaishnaw was non-committal, saying, “Karenge, karenge [will do], I’ll check.”
