Delhi High Court seeks Centre's response on plea challenging new IT rules

New Delhi: The Delhi High Court on Tuesday sought the Centre’s response on a plea challenging the new Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021. A bench of Chief Justice DN Patel and Justice Jasmeet Singh issued notices to the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology and the Ministry of Information and Technology, and granted them time to file their response. The high court was hearing a petition filed by the Foundation for Independent Journalism which said that the new IT rules issued by the government on February 25 are palpably illegal in seeking to control and regulate digital news media when the parent statute IT Act nowhere provides for such a remit. The plea said it has profound and serious harms for digital news media, like the petitioner, and destructive of their rights. It sought to declare the “IT Rules as void and inoperative insofar as it define and apply to publishers of news and current affairs content”.