The Supreme Court on Friday issued notice to the Centre seeking its response for blocking a BBC documentary, ‘India: The Modi Question’, and also directed the government to place before it the original records of the decision-making process for its perusal.
A bench of Justices Sanjiv Khanna and MM Sundresh, however, turned down a plea for an interim order to direct the Centre to make public its blocking order and said that it would itself examine the document on the next date of hearing.
The court was hearing a joint petition filed by journalist N Ram, TMC MP Mohua Moitra and advocate Prashant Bhushan, challenging the Centre’s decision to block the documentary.
Senior advocate CU Singh, appearing for the petitioners, contended that the Centre invoked emergency powers under the Informational Technology Act and passed a “secret” order for blocking the documentary. As the bench told him why he should first approach the high court, Singh responded that the apex court, on a plea of the Centre, had transferred all pending cases on the constitutional validity of the Act to itself and it must be the SC which should hear this petition also.
Singh submitted that the government was obliged to place its order in public domain but it had not been done so far. Pleading for an interim order, he said that actions were being taken against students for trying to screen the documentary.
The bench, however, turned down the plea and said that it would examine the original file pertaining to the decision and then decide on passing an order, and posted the case for hearing in April. It said that the action taken against students was a separate issue.
The SC also issued notice to Google India and Twitter, which were also made parties in the case by the petitioners for blocking sharing of the documentary on their platforms and for removing the posts shared by the petitioners.
