Won't notify fact-checking unit till July 10, Centre tells Bombay HC

The Centre on Wednesday told the Bombay High Court it was extending till July 10 its earlier statement that it wont notify its factchecking unit to identify fake news against the government on social media even as two new petitions were filed challenging the recently amended IT RulesThe Union government had in April told the HC that the factchecking unit would not be notified till July 5 The statement was made when the court was hearing a petition filed by standup comic Kunal Kamra challenging the constitutional validity of the Information Technology RulesOn Wednesday a division bench of Justices Gautam Patel and Neela Gokhale was informed that two new petitions have also been filed challenging the RulesThe petitions filed by the Editors Guild of India and the Association of Indian Magazines claim that the Rules are arbitrary and unconstitutionalThe court said it would hear all the three petitions from July 6We shall take up the petitions for final disposal from July 6 onwards The petitioners counsels shall complete their arguments on July 7 after which we shall set a date for the Union government to put forth their arguments the court saidIn view of the dates fixed for hearing the Additional Solicitor General Anil Singh says that the statement made earlier by the Centre shall stand extended till July 10 the court addedOn April 6 2023 the Union government promulgated certain amendments to the Information Technology Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code Rules 2021 including a provision for a factchecking unit to flag fake or false or misleading online content related to the governmentThe three petitions sought the court to declare the amended Rules unconstitutional and direct the government to restrain from acting against any individual under the RulesThe Union government in its affidavit filed in comedian Kamras petition in April said that the role of the factchecking unit is restricted to any business of the Centre which may include information about policies programmes notifications rules regulations implementation thereof etcThe fact check unit may only identify fake or false or misleading information and not any opinion satire or artistic impression Therefore the aim of the government regarding the introduction of the impugned provision is explicitly clear and suffers from no purported arbitrariness or unreasonableness as alleged by the petitioner Kamra the Centres affidavit had saidAs per the amendments intermediaries such as social media companies will have to act against content identified by the factchecking unit or risk losing their safe harbour protections under Section 79 of the IT ActSafe harbour protections allow intermediaries to avoid liabilities for what third parties post on their websitesThis story has been sourced from a third party syndicated feed agencies Midday accepts no responsibility or liability for its dependability trustworthiness reliability and data of the text Midday managementmiddaycom reserves the sole right to alter delete or remove without notice the content in its absolute discretion for any reason whatsoever