Queency Jain
Justice Anup Jairam Bhambhani of Delhi High Court has refused to hear pleas by various digital media houses challenging the constitutional validity of the Information Technology (Guidelines of Intermediaries and Digital Media ethics Code) Rules, 2021.
Delaying the cases to be heard on 28 June, Bhambhani rescued himself from entertaining pleas against the same.
Transferring the same to a roster bench, Bhambhani stated that either he could hear the pleas or not, there’s no middle way for him.
Earlier, even though the petitioners contended the matter to be urgent on the grounds of violation of fundamental rights, the contention was rejected and the matter was adjourned on the ground of non-urgency.
While Senior Advocate Nitya Ramakrishnan had earlier sought for interim protection of the petitioners under Part 3 of the IT rules, the same was not granted stating that petitioners will be at liberty to seek urgent hearing of matter only if coercive steps will be taken by the Government.
The new IT rules are intended to be arbitrary and unreasonable on the grounds that the parent statute of the IT rules does not deal with digital media. Hence, the rules are contended to be violative of Article 19(1) (a), 19(2) and 14 of the Constitution of India.
