The Bombay High Court on Wednesday paved the way for the Centre to notify a Fact Checking Unit (FCU) under the recently amended Information Technology Rules to identify fake and false content on social media against the government.
A division bench of Justices Gautam Patel and Neela Gokhale rejected applications seeking a stay on the setting up of the FCU pending final disposal of petitions challenging the constitutional validity of the Rules.
On March 11, a single bench of Justice A S Chandurkar had said no case was made out to direct the government to continue its earlier statement that it would not notify the FCU pending hearing of petitions against the IT Rules.
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The issue was referred to the single bench after the division bench had given a split verdict on the pleas in January.
While Justice Patel had held the Rules as unconstitutional and hence said the FCU could not be set up, Justice Gokhale said there was nothing unconstitutional in the Rules.
When the petitions were filed, the Centre had initially given an express assurance that it would not notify the FCU until the final decision on the matter was taken.
After the division bench's split verdict, Solicitor General Tushar Mehta had said that the government would not be in a position to continue the “assurance/ statement”.
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On Wednesday, the bench said the third judge had rendered his opinion.
“Consequently the majority view is that the interim applications for continuation of previous statement are rejected,” the court said.
The single bench of Justice Chandurkar will on Friday fix the dates for the final hearing of the pleas against the Rules.
On April 6, 2023, the Union government promulgated certain amendments to the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021, including a provision for an FCU to flag fake, false or misleading online content related to the government.
Under the IT Rules, if the FCU comes across or is informed about any posts that are fake, false, and contain misleading facts about the business of the government, it would flag off the same to social media intermediaries.
Once such a post is flagged off, the intermediary has the option of either taking down the post or putting a disclaimer on the same.
In taking the second option, the intermediary loses its safe harbour/immunity and stands liable for legal action.
