SC notice to Centre on failure to make available hard copies of laws passed in Parliament

The Supreme Court on Friday issued notice to the Centre on a plea to frame guidelines for regulating the publication of hard copies of all Acts of Parliament, rules, notification, and Ordinances at a reasonable price.

A bench presided over by Chief Justice S A Bobde sought a response from the Union Law Ministry's legislative department wing and others on a petition filed by Arpit Bhargava, alleging blatant laxity on their parts in ensuring dissemination of knowledge about central Acts, rules, etc being the copyright owner.

The petitioner led by advocate Prashant Bhushan challenged the validity of the Delhi High Court's order of November 14, 2019 that had dismissed the PIL in the matter.

He contended that the right to know under Article 19(1)(a) of the Constitution extended to ensuring the availability of authentic, accurate and reasonably priced hard copies of all Acts of Parliament, rules, notifications, regulations, etc along with amendments from time to time for public at large.

The petitioner also maintained that since the government was the copyright owner of all laws passed by Parliament, publishing of hard copies of the bare Acts by private parties, that too at higher prices, constituted infringement of copyright in terms of Section 52(1)(q) of the Copyright Act, 1957.

Relying upon an RTI response, the petitioner said, "no proper budget, infrastructure, and the channel has been developed in this regard and the will to give meaningful effect to the fundamental right to know is completely missing."

The petitioner contended that the High Court failed to appreciate that the loss to the public at large was not only due to high prices charged by private publishers but also due to inaccurate and non-authentic reproduction of Acts, rules, notifications, regulations, etc by them.