SC seeks Centre’s response on petition against blocking of YouTube channel
The court posted the matter for hearing after two weeks as the channel owner Sanjay Sharma sought urgent orders to restore his operations
The Supreme Court on Monday sought the central government’s response on a petition seeking quashing of the order blocking YouTube channel ‘4 PM’.
The court posted the matter for hearing after two weeks as the channel owner Sanjay Sharma sought urgent orders to restore his operations.
A bench headed by Justice Bhushan R Gavai said, “We have to hear the other side before passing any order,” as the court also issued notice to YouTube, which had issued the blocking order on April 29, on the instructions of the Centre.
The plea, filed by Sanjay Sharma who runs the YouTube channel, has sought direction to the Centre to produce the blocking order with reasons and records, if any, for blocking the channel.
Senior advocate Kapil Sibal who appeared for Sharma, said, “How can this happen. This is ex-facie unconstitutional. I have not been served a copy of the blocking order. Only information I have is from the intermediary.”
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The bench, also comprising justice KV Viswanathan, agreed to have the matter after two weeks and allowed the petitioner to serve the petition to the Ministry of Electronic and Information Technology and the Ministry of Home Affairs.
Sharma, in his petition filed through advocate Talha Abdul Rahman claimed to have a subscriber base of over seven million and opposed the arbitrary and unconstitutional blocking of his news channel.
He requested the court to lift the blocking order as he had no information how his channel was blocked on the ground of “national security”. His digital news platform had raised uncomfortable questions on accountability and lapses following the Pahalgam terror attack.
The petition has sought quashing of Rule 16 of the Information Technology (Procedure and Safeguards for Blocking for Access of Information by Public) Rules, 2009.Rule 16 says strict confidentiality shall be maintained regarding all the requests and complaints received and actions taken thereof.The plea has claimed that the order blocking the channel was arbitrary and unconstitutional.
