New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Friday junked a PIL seeking a direction to the Centre to set up an autonomous body to monitor and filter content and regulate videos on over-the-top (OTT) and other platforms in India, saying these are policy matters.
A bench led by Chief Justice of India D Y Chandrachud and comprising justices J B Pardiwala and Manoj Misra said: "This is the problem of PILs. They are all on policy (matters) now and we miss out genuine PILs…”.
The bench said that such an issue falls under the policy-making domain of the executive and requires wide consultations with various stakeholders.
Advocate Shashank Shekhar Jha, who filed the PIL, submitted that the court may permit him to withdraw the plea. Jha said he would approach the Union Ministry concerned with the grievances. “No. Dismissed,” the CJI said.
The plea referred to the Netflix series ‘IC 814: The Kandahar Hijack’ to highlight the need for such a regulatory mechanism as the OTT platform claimed it was based on real-life incidents.
The plea contended that there exists a statutory film certification body — Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC) — tasked with regulating the public exhibition of films under the Cinematograph Act. The cinematograph law outlines a strict certification process for commercial films shown in public venues, it said.
“However, no such body is available to monitor/regulate the OTT contents and they are only bound by the self-regulations which are not compiled properly and the controversial contents are shown to the public at large without any checks and balances,” the PIL said.
