Court grants interim protection to Chidambaram till June 5
New Delhi, May 30: A special court here on Wednesday granted interim protection to P. Chidambaram from arrest till June 5 in the Aircel-Maxis deal case.
Special Judge O.P. Saini announced the order and directed him to join the investigation on June 5, the date when Enforcement Directorate (ED) has asked him to appear before it for questioning.
The court has asked ED to file a response on Chidambaram's anticipatory bail plea and listed the matter for further hearing on June 5.
Earlier, the court granted interim protection to Karti Chidambaram from arrest till July 10 in the Aircel-Maxis deal case.
The Central Bureau of Investigation and the Enforcement Directorate are investigating how Karti Chidambaram allegedly managed to get a clearance from the Foreign Investment Promotion Board (FIPB) in the Aircel-Maxis deal when his father P. Chidambaram was the Finance Minister in 2006.
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Bombay High Court strikes down Centre's plan to set up Fact-Check Unit
Mumbai: The Bombay High Court has struck down the central government's plan to establish a fact-checking unit (FCU) under the Information Technology Amendment Rules, 2023. The decision comes in response to a petition filed by standup comedian Kunal Kamra, challenging the constitutional validity of the Centre's move.
Justice A.S. Chandurkar, delivering the final verdict, declared that the proposed IT Amendment Rules violated key provisions of the Indian Constitution, namely Articles 14 (right to equality), 19 (freedom of speech and expression), and 19(1)(g) (right to profession).
“I have considered the matter extensively. The impugned rules are violative of Articles 14, 19, and 19(1)(g) of the Constitution of India,” Justice Chandurkar said in his judgment. He further remarked that terms like "fake, false, and misleading" in the IT Rules were "vague" and lacked a clear definition, making them unconstitutional.
This judgment followed a split verdict issued by a division bench of the Bombay High Court in January. The bench, consisting of Justices Gautam Patel and Neela Gokhale, was divided in their opinions. While Justice Patel ruled that the IT Rules amounted to censorship and struck them down, Justice Gokhale upheld the rules, arguing that they did not pose a "chilling effect" on free speech, as the petitioners had claimed.
The matter was then referred to a third judge, leading to today's decision. The Supreme Court had previously stayed the Centre's notification that would have made the fact-checking unit operational, stating that the government could not proceed until the Bombay High Court ruled on the case.
Kunal Kamra and other petitioners had argued that the amendments posed unreasonable restrictions on freedom of speech and expression. They contended that the provisions would lead to government-led censorship, effectively granting the government unchecked powers to determine what constitutes 'truth' online. The petitioners further claimed that such powers would turn the government into "prosecutor, judge, and executioner" in matters of online content.
With the Bombay High Court’s ruling, the Centre's move to create fact-checking units has been effectively halted, reaffirming the importance of protecting freedom of speech and expression in the digital space.
