Supreme Court to examine plea against Bombay HC's verdict striking down IT rules on fact check units

New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Tuesday decided to examine a plea by the Centre against the Bombay High Court's September 2024 judgment which struck down the provisions in the Information Technology Rules empowering the Union government to establish Fact Check Units (FCU).

A bench of Chief Justice of India Surya Kant and Justices R Mahadevan and Joymalya Bagchi said that the issue is of paramount importance and it is better that it lays down a law in this regard.

Solicitor General Tushar Mehta for the Centre, urged the court to consider staying the high court’s judgment.

The bench, however, said right now the court is not keen to stay the judgment.

As per the 2023 amendment to the IT Rules, social media intermediaries will lose 'safe harbour' protection if they fail to take down content flagged as fake by the Centre's Fact Check Unit (FCU).

Mehta maintained, there is no intent to curb any humour, satire, critical expression of view or criticism.

Senior advocate Arvind Datar for the respondents said there is effectively a 400-day delay in filing.

The bench, however, said the issue is of "paramount importance and it is better the apex court lays down a law.”

Datar said the high court passed a very detailed judgment that it was not clear who would be manning these units.

The court said the only question was how to balance the rights.

Datar said the high court had said that the government should frame proper fact-check rules and it cannot be put in a clause in the notification.

The court was also informed that in view of the new 2025 IT Rules notified by the government recently, the FCU was actually redundant.

The bench, however, said, “Look how some of these platforms are behaving nowadays. How dangerous are these. See the illustrations they have placed on record...".

The bench was informed that under rule 3 (1) (d), elaborate reasons have to be provided and the content would have to taken down in 36 hours. "In 36 hours, you damage the person like anything…", the bench said.

Datar said whatever is misleading information, the Central government can take it down.

“What is misleading? Who defines it? Bombay High Court said what is misleading has not been defined,” he pointed out.

The bench said, “There should be very clear guidelines but shifting the entire onus on the machinery without putting any obligation on all those who play the mischief is something which requires a lot of consideration”.

Datar said there is a very serious obligations on intermediaries and he is appearing for them day in and day out.

The court pointed out at the fake WhatsApp messages regarding the Army and police, and agreed to examine the issue.

The high court's judgment came on petitions filed by satirist Kunal Kamra, Editors Guild of India, News Broadcasters and Digital Association, Association of Indian Magazines and others.