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Synopsis

On Tuesday, the Bombay High Court stated that the Central Government should not notify the Fact Check Unit (FCU) as an administrative courtesy to the Chief Justice and the third judge who will be giving his opinion in light of the split verdict by the division bench of the high court.

A division bench of the high court, comprising Justice GS Patel and Justice Neela Gokhale, was hearing an interim application filed by the petitioners seeking to extend the statement of the central government not to notify the Fact Check Unit

“If I had the misfortune to be third judge, I would seriously be upset by the lack of courtesy to given to me for enough time to come to grips with what has come to this much time for division bench. Our judges are under the most intolerable pressure. Our Chief Justice has not been able to identify a judge who is available. The working hours are beyond brutal. Someone will have to set aside their work and deal with this. I would be very upset if I am put under that kind of pressure,” Justice Patel said.

The high court delivered a split verdict on January 31, 2024, in petitions challenging the constitutionality of the Fact Check Unit established by the central government under the amended IT Rules to identify fake, false, and misleading content on social media.

In the split verdict, Justice Patel struck down the amended rule establishing FCU while Justice Gokhale ruled against the petitioners.

On January 31, the bench passed an order on the assurance of SG Tushar Mehta that the Fact Check Unit will not be notified for 10 days until the matter is referred to the third judge.

As the petition had not yet been assigned to a third judge, the petitioners filed an interim application to extend the statement of the central government not to notify the FCU.

SG Mehta, today, maintained that he had instructions to oppose the interim application and not to extend the statement to not notify the Fact Check Unit

Senior Advocate Navroz Seervai submitted that the Solicitor General had earlier made a statement that the FCU would not be notified until the judgment was delivered. He emphasized that the division bench had delivered a ‘split opinion’ and not a judgment.

Seervai added that a judgment would only be passed by the division bench after the third judge gave his opinion on the split verdict of the division bench.

SG Mehta maintained that the division bench did not have jurisdiction to decide the interim application and it would only be the third judge who could decide the interim application.

“Somehow they want this bench to decide. Let the third judge take a call for interim relief. Me extending the statement would not help the petitioners but it would harm the nation,” SG said.

SG Mehta sought time to file written statements in response to the interim application, after which the bench postponed the matter to February 8th at 2:30 PM.

Case title: Kunal Kamra & Ors vs UOI