SC stays proceedings before HCs on regulations of OTT

The top court had earlier issued notice on a transfer petition filed by the Centre seeking to club all petitions filed in various high courts on the issue of regulating OTT platforms

The Supreme Court on Tuesday stayed all proceedings pending before various high courts related to regulations and functioning of OTT (over-the-top) platforms like Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, Hotstar, etc.

A bench presided over by Justice D Y Chandrachud stayed further proceedings in high courts, including in Kerala, Delhi, Punjab and Haryana high courts, and said the court would hear the matter in April second week.

Justice M R Shah, also comprising the bench, said the proceedings pending before multiple high courts are to be stayed.

Read: Will these web series be affected by the new OTT guidelines?

The court was hearing a batch of PILs filed by advocate Shashank Shekhar Jha, NGO 'Justice for Rights Foundation' for regulating OTT platforms by an autonomous body.

The Union government filed a petition seeking transfer of cases pending in different high courts for regulation of OTT platforms. The Bench had earlier issued notice on Centre's plea and tagged it with other petitions.

In a related development, the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting filed an affidavit in the court, saying the new Information Technology (Guidelines For Intermediaries And Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021 has been notified to address the issue.

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 "inappropriate and obscene" content, and regulate the videos on various online platforms for viewers in the country.

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