High Court hit the central government! The amendment of the law regarding the establishment of the truth-seeking committee was declared unconstitutional and canceled!!

Mumbai: The High Court on Friday gave an important verdict that the central government has no right to determine the truth or falsity of the news published on social media against the government through the Santyashodhan Committee. Also, the amendment to the Information-Technology Act giving this right to the central government was declared unconstitutional by the court. The important observation of the court was that this amendment is unconstitutional and it violates the rights of equality, freedom of speech and expression given by the state government to conduct business. His bench had given a conflicting verdict. Justice Patel, while accepting the contentions of the petitioners, ruled that the amendment in the Act was illegal and struck it down. However, Justice Gokhale had rightly decided to give the government the right to determine the truth or falsity of news published on social media against the government. As Justice Patel and Justice Gokhale gave conflicting judgments, the case was referred to a single bench of Justice Anil Chandurkar for a majority on this point. Justice Chandurkar concurring with the opinion of Justice Patel and giving a majority judgment of two to one decided to strike down the amended Information-Technology Rules. We have considered this matter extensively. Accordingly, the single bench said in its judgment that the amendment of the law giving the power to the central government to determine the truth or falsity of news published on social media against the government is a clear violation of the aforementioned fundamental rights given by the Constitution. Moreover, the amended provisions of the law are unclear and are likely to affect not only an individual but also social media intermediary companies. Therefore, the single bench of Justice Chandurkar clarified that the proposed amendment to the law is being struck down. The definition of the three words fake, false and misleading in the law amendment is not clear. Therefore, the single bench also stated that the amendment of the law was wrong for lack of clear definition. While giving the above decision, the single bench upheld the petitions filed by comedian Kunal Kamra along with editors and magazine associations challenging the amended rules in the Information-Technology Act. Also, while agreeing with the judgment of Justice Patel, the single bench of Justice Chandurkar emphasized the need to protect the rights of citizens to freedom of expression. Stating that if the central government is given the right to determine the truth or falsity of news published on social media against the government, it will affect the fundamental rights of the citizens, he said in the judgment that the amended rules were taken into account to cancel. And freedom of speech is not included. Also, it is not the responsibility of the government to convey to the citizens only the information that the Satyasodhan Committee has determined to be true. Therefore, the single bench also made the important observation that it cannot be held to be admissible on the basis of law while declaring the amendment unconstitutional. Not only this, the decision to verify that the content published on social media or digital platform is fake, the single bench also said in the judgment that it was not prudent. The government constituted a truth-seeking committee to verify whether the content against the government or the government’s work is true or false. But, since this committee is constituted by the government, its decision can be unilateral, the single bench highlighted the apprehension expressed by the petitioner and Justice Patel. By raising such a question, Justice Gautam Patel declared the amended rules unconstitutional and gave the judgment of cancellation. Also, every attempt to curtail fundamental rights should be resisted. The most frightening aspect of this amendment is that it is one-sided. The government cannot forcefully classify speech as true or false and then force it to remain unpublished. Justice Patel also highlighted in his judgment that this is a form of censorship. Justice Patel had noted that the amendment gave the central government full power to declare the text false, misleading and it was for them. On the other hand, Nirwala Justice Gokhale said in his judgment that it is unfair to accuse the members of the Satya Shodhan Samiti of bias just because they are appointed by the government. Also, these rules will not affect the rights of publishers of online content, it said. Justice Gokhale said that the right to remove fake, untrue, false information is not part of freedom of speech and seeking protection from this perspective is inconsistent.