Bombay High Court refuses to grant interim stay on setting up of fact-checking unit

Granting weightage to Solicitor General of India Tushar Mehta's submission that political opinions, satire and comedy are aspects not sought to be linked to "the business of the Central Government," the third judge of the Bombay High Court hearing the petitions against the Information Technology (IT) rules on Monday refused to grant any further stay on notifying the Fact Check Units (FCU).

Justice AS Chandurkar further added that notifying FCU would not result in an irreversible situation for the reason that any action taken post notifying the FCU would always be subject to the validity of IT rule amendment which is under challenge. "This situation when pitted against larger public interest leads me to opine that grave and irreparable loss is not shown to result if the FCU is notified warranting the passing of an interim direction of not notifying the FCU till the challenge to Rule 3(1)(b)(v) of the Rules of 2021 as amended in 2023 is finally decided," stated Justice Chandurkar.

The petitions filed by stand up Comic Kunal Kamra and others challenged the validity of Rule 3(1)(b)(v) of the IT (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules 2021 (for short, the Rules of 2021) as amended by Rule 3(i)(II)(A) and (C) of the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Amendment Rules 2023 (for short, the Amendment Rules of 2023).