On Tuesday, the Supreme Court stayed all hearings pending before various high courts across the country regarding the government’s regulation and operation of over-the-top (OTT) platforms such as Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, Hotstar, and others.
A bench led by Justice DY Chandrachud stayed further proceedings in various high courts and said it would hear petitions on a similar issue in the second week of April.
The Supreme Court was hearing a batch of Public Interest Litigations (PILs) filed by lawyer Shashank Shekhar Jha, who was representing Justice for Rights Foundation, calling for an independent body to regulate OTT platforms.
The petitions demanded the creation of a proper board, institute, and association to oversee and maintain content on various OTT, streaming, and digital media platforms.
The central government has also lodged a transfer petition to have cases pending in various high courts for OTT platform regulation transferred. The Supreme Court had previously issued a notice on the Centre’s petition, grouping it with other petitions.
In addition, the ministry of information and broadcasting assured the apex court in an affidavit that, now that new rules are in place, it will keep a close eye on content on OTT platforms like Netflix and Amazon Prime.
The new Information Technology (Guidelines for Intermediaries and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021, were alerted to address the issue, according to the report.
The Supreme Court had previously invited the Centre to inform it of the government’s plans to regulate OTT platforms and to file an affidavit detailing its plans after the government stated that it was working on the problem.
According to one of the petitions, filed by advocate Jha, there is currently no legislation or autonomous body regulating, tracking, and overseeing such digital contents, and they are made available to the general public without any filtering or screening.
According to the PIL, no OTT/streaming platforms, including Netflix, Amazon Prime, Zee5, and Hotstar, have signed the information and broadcasting ministry’s self-regulation since February 2020.
According to the petitioners, there are over 40 such platforms in India that provide paid, ad-free, and free content to over 130 million people.
The petitions claim that their goal is to protect the right to life guaranteed by the Constitution by prohibiting these platforms from exploiting their freedom of expression.
The petition asked for the formation of a board led by a secretary-level IAS officer and comprised of individuals from various fields such as film, cinematography, media, defense forces, legal, and education.
“With cinemas unlikely to open anytime soon in the country,” the petition claimed, “OTT/Streaming and other digital media platforms have undoubtedly provided a way out for filmmakers and artists to release their content without worrying about obtaining clearance certificates for their films and series from the censor board.”
In a separate case, the Centre had previously told the Supreme Court that there is a need to regulate digital media and that the court should first nominate a committee of individuals as amicus before laying down guidelines for the regulation of hate speech in media.
