Kunal Kamra Moves Supreme Court Seeking Stay On Constitution Of Fact Check Units

Stand-up comedian Kunal Kamra has moved the Supreme Court, seeking a stay on the constitution of fact check units, established in accordance with the 2023 amendment to the IT Rules.

As per these amended rules, an intermediary will be required to make reasonable efforts to ensure that its users do not host, display, upload, modify, publish or share any information in respect of any business of the Union government that is identified as false, or misleading by a designated fact check unit.

What Is Kamra's Argument?

In his plea, Kamra said that any information identified as "fake, false or misleading" by the FCU would be taken down by the intermediary in order to avoid the risk of potential legal liability.

While these units are facially directed at intermediaries, it is the users and the information created and hosted by them on various platforms that are the stakeholders, it said.

The rule under challenge is extremely broad in its sweep and would operate to muzzle speech against the central government, according to the plea. “It coerces intermediaries to execute a regime of self-interested censorship of online content relating to the business of the central government," it said. "Intermediaries, as profit making, commercial enterprises, would naturally choose to avoid civil or criminal liability for third-party content, and would invariably remove it."

It was also submitted that there is already a robust, existing mechanism to address the concern of fake news about the Union government in the form of the Press Information Bureau.

The matter is likely to be heard by the top court on Thursday.

Earlier this month, the Bombay High Court declined to halt the establishment of the FCUs until the matter was finally adjudicated upon, saying there was no conclusive argument against their notification.

This rejection prompted Kamra to move the top court to seek relief.