The Delhi High Court on Friday sought response from the Centre and the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting over a petition filed by online news portal The Quint challenging the new Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021 with respect to online news portals and websites.
A division bench of Chief Justice D.N. Patel and Justice Jasmeet Singh issued notice on the petition filed by the media portal through Prasanna S.
The court has now tagged matter with other petitions with similar prayers and listed them for hearing on April 16.
The plea challenges the IT Rules, 2021 only in so far as they affect digital news portals, and is not with reference to ‘publishers of online curated content’, i.e., OTT media platforms or any other entities sought to be regulated by the Impugned Rules.
The plea sought court’s direction to declare the IT Rules, 2021 as void and inoperative in so far as they define and apply to publishers of news and current affairs content, and Part III of the Rules, in so far as it regulates publishers of news and current affairs content, for being violative of Articles 14, 19(1)(a), 19(1)(g) and 21 of the Constitution.