SC asks Centre to spell out measures to regulate OTT platforms

The Supreme Court on Tuesday asked the Centre to respond to a PIL for regulating content on OTT platforms such as Netflix and Amazon Prime by an autonomous body.

"What are you doing, a legislation or what? File an affidavit on what do you propose to do," a bench presided over by Chief Justice S A Bobde asked Additional Solicitor General K M Nataraj, representing the Centre, who said the issue was under deliberation.

The court, however, said merely saying the government is considering or contemplating steps on the issue would not be sufficient.

The Centre's counsel submitted that the issue is under deliberation, and no steps have been finalised yet.

The court asked the Union government to file the affidavit detailing the steps. It tagged the matter with a similar pending special leave petition by NGO 'Justice for Rights Foundation'.

On October 15, 2020, the court issued notice to the Centre on the plea for setting up an autonomous body or board to monitor and filter the "inappropriate and obscene" content, and regulate the videos on various online platforms for viewers in the country.

The PIL was filed jointly by two advocates Shashank Shekhar Jha and Apurva Arhatia.

The petitioners pointed out that currently, there is no law or autonomous body governing the digital content made available to the public at large without any filter or screening, resulting into abuse of artistic liberty.

They claimed over 40 OTT (Over the Top) and video streaming platforms, providing paid, ad-inclusive, and free content, abused the freedom of speech and expression guaranteed under the Constitution.

None of the OTT/streaming platforms including Netflix, Amazon Prime, Zee5, and Hotstar have signed the self-regulation provided by the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting since February 2020, the PIL said.

"No censoring allows exploitation of creative liberty and pushes for more ideas to get incorporated which in turn allows writers, directors, and producers to experiment limitless due to which there has been more violence, sex scenes, obscene language and even characters smoking on screen - that would normally be cut or displayed alongside health warnings," said the PIL.

The petitioners had informed the top court that due to no monitoring body, the language of the content has become more colloquial.