Mumbai: In a temporary assistance to online content publishers, the Bombay High Court on Saturday, some of the rules of the new rules are 2021 for the digital media ethics code and intermediary guidelines under information technology laws.
The court observed that the rules “go beyond substantive actions” or in other words trying to regulate something that acts itself no.
It is said that the 9 Prima Facie rule is an intrusion of the Rights of the Petitioner in Article 19 (1) (a) (freedom of speech and expression) of the constitution.
The head of the judicial head of Datta Datta and Justice Girish Kulkarni said the temporary commandment on two litigation of public interests (pills) which challenged the constitutional validity of the new rules.
That HC does not remain rule 16, which empowers “blocking information (content) in an emergency” without hearing people, publishers or intermediaries.
“There are no cases made to keep rules 16,” Bench said.
HC said the applicants did not challenge similar provisions in the rules of 2009 under the IT Law.
Rule 9, some living, look for “observations and compliance” by publishers with the code of ethics and journalist behavioral norms under the Press Council guidelines and cable TV codes.
The current rule of staying is 9 (1), “A publisher will observe and comply with the code” and 9 (3) which establishes a three-level structure to deal with complaints to the publisher.
The three-level structure consists of level I – self regulation by the publisher, the level of publisher II – self-regulations by the self-regulatory agency from publishers and level III – supervision mechanism by the central government.
However, HC said he had not lived rule 9 (2) who said that the publisher that contradicted or violated other laws continued with the law.
It also did not study the rules of 14, which provided action to be taken by the “Inter Department Committee” because the committee was not yet appointed.
HC praised Liberty to the two applicants to seek help as and when there was a need for rules 14.
“There is no direct urgency as far as the rule 14 concerned as inter = the department committee has not been appointed,” Bench said.
On Friday, the bench has submitted several questions to the center including, “How the protection in substantive law is brought away by a delegated law (rules are the laws that are delegated, not made by parliament)?” Both Pils, one by the owner of the digital portal and the other by Media Nikhil Wagle, said this new rule was intended to control the “online content” and would have a cold effect on free speech.
Darius Khambata’s senior advisor appeared for the portal, said the urgency to stay was even clearer because the cold effect had been experienced through self-rules.
While in previous hearing he had searched three rules – 9, 14 and 16, on Friday he searched at least 9 rules that called for compliance with the code of ethics by the publisher.
The central government, represented by additional lawyers General (ASG) Anil Singh, has opposed the application, said the rules provide primarily to self-regulations and government supervision, the committee for non-regulated r.
Relief for publishers as HC remains part of the new IT rule
