The latest entrant in the army of news organisations challenging the IT rules 2021 is the News Broadcasters Association, which filed a plea in the Kerala High Court on Thursday.
According to BoomLive, the NBA was granted interim protection by the court today. The NBA had previously written to then information and broadcasting minister Prakash Javadekar in May, asking the ministry to exempt and exclude traditional television news and its extended presence on digital news platforms from the scope of the new IT rules.
#KeralaHighCourt grants interim protection to News Broadcasters Association (NBA) which challenged the provisions of the new IT Rules 2021. The HC's order came after it was pointed out that a similar order was passed in favour of @LiveLawIndia @boomlive_in
— Ritika Jain (@riotsjain) July 9, 2021
In its plea, the NBA said that the rules give government authorities "excessive powers" to "unreasonably and impermissibly restrict" the freedom of speech and expression of the media. The Kerala High Court’s order came after it was pointed out that a similar order was passed in favour of legal news portal LiveLaw.
The plea stated that the grievance redressal mechanism that is mandated by the new rules have a “chilling effect” on the content of the media. It added that by creating such a structure, the executive has “made inroads into judicial power and vested itself with powers reserved exclusively for the judiciary”.
Several digital news media platforms have already challenged the IT rules in various high courts. Earlier this week, the central government moved the Supreme Court for the transfer of all these cases from the high courts to the apex court.
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