“Fact-Checking Cannot Be Used as an Explanation for Censorship”

• The Centre’s ‘fact-checking unit’ was deemed unconstitutional by Justice A.S. Chandurkar of the Bombay High Court.
• The rule, introduced in 2023, required social media platforms to remove information flagged as fake, false, or misleading.
• The rule violated the right to freedom of expression and sought to coercively classify speech as true or false based on vague and undefined terms.
• The government argued that recklessly published material contrary to truth cannot have constitutional protection and that aggrieved platforms were free to seek remedy.
• Two of the three judges found the rule unconstitutional, stating that the terms ‘fake’, ‘false’, or’misleading’ were not defined and there was no scope for redress provided in the rules.
• The restriction was only applied to information about the Centre, not other kinds of information.
• Justice Chandurkar agreed with Justice G.S. Patel that a restriction on free speech based on whether something is true or false was not one of the circumstances listed in Article 19(2) of the Constitution for imposing reasonable restrictions.