Bombay High Court: The Bombay High Court has struck down the Information Technology Amendment Rules 2023. The court has termed it unconstitutional. Through the Information Technology Amendment, the Central Government was allowed to set up a fact check unit to identify and dismiss ‘fake and misleading’ information about its functioning on social media platforms. The court said on this matter that the Fact Check Unit (FCU) is a violation of fundamental rights.
In January, a division bench gave a split decision on the petitions challenging the amended IT rules. After which the case was assigned to Justice AS Chandurkar as a ‘tie-breaker judge’. After which Justice Chandurkar today said that the IT rules violated constitutional provisions.
Justice has said that I believe that this amendment is a violation of Article 14 and Article 19 of the Constitution of the country. Earlier, a division bench of Justice Gautam Patel and Dr. Neela Gokhale had given separate verdicts on the Information Technology Amendment Rules 2023 in January 2024.
In his decision, Justice Gautam Patel had said that the amendment to the IT Rules is a direct violation of fundamental rights under Article 19(1)(g) due to the differential treatment between the proposed Fact Check Unit (FCU) online and print content. Article 19(1)(g) of the Constitution of India gives freedom to practice any profession. On the other hand, the second judge on this matter, Dr. Neela Gokhale, had termed the amendment to the IT Rules as unconstitutional.
He had said in his decision that the petitioner fears that the Fact Check Unit (FCU) will be a biased body. Which will consist of only people selected by the Central Government and will follow their instructions. Justice Shri Patel had clearly stated in his decision that there can be no restriction on free speech. Nor does the Information Technology Amendment Rules 2023 suggest any punitive consequences to be suffered by a user.
