Supreme Court of India

NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Tuesday decided to examine the plea to put in place a mechanism to regulate social media and track originators of fake news, rumours and other objectionable material like pornography on platforms like Facebook, WhatsApp , Twitter, YouTube etc and directed transfer of all such petitions pending in various high courts to itself.

A bench of Justices Deepak Gupta and Anuruddha Bose allowed the plea of Facebook which had sought transfer of all such cases pending in Madras, Bombay and Madhya Pradesh HCs to the apex court for adjudication.

The Centre told the court that it will frame rules within three months to check misuse of internet and to make social media giants liable to share information when their platforms are misused for criminal and anti-national activities.

Attorney General K K Venugopal, appearing for Tamil Nadu government, told the bench that there is a provision under the Information Technology Act and Rules framed under the law which make online companies liable to assist government agencies in monitoring, intercepting and decrypting information and messages.

The bench, however, said the rule prima facie does not say that it is liability of intermediaries to decrypt the messages and they are only supposed to assist government agencies. It asked why the government should not take help of outside agencies to decrypt messages as done in the US and said if there is technology available, the government should use it for the purpose.

Senior advocate Mukul Rohatgi , appearing for Facebook and WhatsApp, expressed inability of the companies to decrypt messages and told the bench that they do not have the “keys” for it. He said the MNCs are not liable to provide decrypted information to government agencies. Venugopal, however, strongly opposed his plea and said the companies should not be allowed to function if they do not assure decryption of information.

Senior advocate Shyam Divan, appearing for Internet Freedom Foundation, intervened and told the bench that the court should refrain from passing observations as it would have huge implications on the right to privacy of citizens. He said the plea has already been filed challenging the provisions of Information Technology (Procedure and safeguard for Monitoring and Collecting Traffic Data or Information) Rules as freedom of people is at stake. He said that Centre’s proposal to frame new rules is also a “ploy” to infringe on the citizens’ right to privacy.

Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, however, refuted the allegation and said the government is not intending to go against the right to privacy. But he said intermediaries can not say that they cannot be forced to reveal information on issues involving public interest and national security.

SC had earlier asked the Centre to frame guidelines to regulate social media as it is being rampantly misused for spreading fake news and rumours causing mob violence and law and order problems. It had said that misuse of the new media has become too dangerous to be left unregulated and the Centre must step in to deal with the menace.

Complying with SC’s order, the ministry of electronics and information technology told the court that keeping in view the mischief that could be caused by misuse of internet, the government “felt that the existing rules (are) to be revised for effective regulation of intermediaries keeping in view the ever growing threats to individual rights and nation’s integrity, sovereignty and security”.

