OTT rules have no teeth, bring law: SC

Amazon Prime India head Aparna Purohit not to be arrested

A day after emphasizing on the need to screen the programmes telecast on OTT (Over-The-Top) platforms, the Supreme Court on Friday made light of the recent regulations brought by the government to deal with the OTT and social media platforms, saying that they have “no teeth” but only guidelines and no mechanism to ensure no “objectionable contents” are screened online.

Having chided the government for bringing toothless regulation to deal with social media and OTT platforms, the top court however, in a breather, granted protection from arrest to OTT platform Amazon Prime India head Aparna Purohit. “We direct that the petitioner (Aparna Purohit) shall not be arrested in FIR No. 14/2021 subject to her co-operation with the investigation. She shall appear before the Investigating Officer as and when required,” the court ordered. .

Purohit had approached the top court for anticipatory bail in connection with the FIRs registered against her over the controversial 9-part web series Tandav that was released on the internet in January.

Earlier her plea for anticipatory bail was rejected by Allahabad High Court.

A bench comprising Justice Ashok Bhushan and Justice R Subhash Reddy, which had sought the regulations framed on February 25, for its perusal, said, “We went through the Technology intermediary guidelines. But there is no teeth. No power of prosecution. These are just guidelines. No mechanism to control it. Without legislation you cannot control it.”

Taking a dim view of the effectiveness of the regulations brought to regulate social media and OTT platforms, the court asked the government to consider bringing some law that regulate the platforms.

Noting that one of the issues that have cropped up before the court was that of “control and regulation of platform on which webseries are released”, the court in its order today said that the perusal of Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021, that were brought by the government on February 25 2021, indicate that “the Rules are more and more in the form of guidelines and have no effective mechanism for either screening or taking appropriate action for those who violates the guidelines.”

Put on defensive, Solicitor General said that the government will “consider and take appropriate steps for regulation or legislation as may be found fit” and the same shall be placed before the Court.