Delhi HC dismisses petition seeking regulation of streaming services

A Delhi high court bench on Friday dismissed a petition that sought regulation of content on online contentstreaming platforms like Netflix and Amazon Prime.

The decision came after the Centre informed the court that the online platforms did not require to obtain any government license and that their content was not regulated by it.

“…as far as Ministry of Information and Broadcasting is concerned, the online platforms are not required to obtain any license from this Ministry and the content on online platform is not being regulated by this Ministry,” the ministry told the court.

A bench of chief justice Rajendra Menon and justice V Kameswar Rao then dismissed the petition that had sought regulation of content and removal of vulgar and sexually explicit content on Netflix and Amazon Prime.

The petition had been filed by a non-government organization, Justice for Rights Foundation, whose case was argued by advocate Harpreet S Hora. The public interest litigation argued that the content violated the Indian Penal Code and the IT Act.