Supreme Court restores Centre's appeal to set up fact-check units

NEw new delhi: The sublime margaret court has revived the unification authorities’s appeal against the Bombay high court’s September 2024 judgment striking down the Centre’s attempt to set up a Fact-Checking Unit (FCU) under the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021, after the government informed the court that it had decided to pursue its judicial remedy.Eight months after the dismissal of its petition over the failure to cure defects in the petition, justice Vijay Bishnoi allowed the Centre’s plea for restoration after considering the grounds raised. “IA No. 314593/2025 for condonation of delay in filing application for restoration is allowed…IA No. 314591/2025 seeking restoration is allowed…The special leave petition (SLP) is restored to its original number,” stated the court order released on Thursday.Solicitor general Tushar Mehta and advocate Rajat Nair represented the Centre.The SLP, which challenges the correctness of the high court’s ruling, was earlier dismissed on the administrative side after the Centre failed to cure defects flagged by the registry within the time granted by the court.The Union government had filed its petition on December 24, 2024, assailing the high court’s judgment dated September 26, 2024 in Kunal Kamra Vs Union of India and connected matters, along with the opinion of the third judge in September 2024, and the earlier split verdict of January 31, 2024.On April 25, 2025, the Supreme Court granted six weeks to remove office objections, making it clear that failure to do so would result in dismissal without further reference to the court. As the defects were not cured, the petition was dismissed in June 2025.In its restoration application, the Centre said that after filing the petition, it undertook internal deliberations on whether the issues raised by the high court could be addressed “without recourse to the judicial process.” These deliberations, it said, involved “detailed consideration of various views” across governmental authorities.By the time a final decision was taken to proceed with the appeal, the six-week window had elapsed, it added.The delay, the Centre submitted, was neither deliberate nor willful but was occasioned by “governmental processes and views which had to be obtained from various authorities.” It argued that its right to seek redress under Article 136 of the Constitution ought not to be nullified due to a bona fide and inadvertent lapse.Accepting the explanation, the Supreme Court condoned the delay and restored the SLP to its original number.The litigation centres around Rule 3(1)(b)(v) of the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021, as amended in 2023. The amendment empowered the Centre to notify a “fact check unit” (FCU) to identify information that was “fake or false or misleading” in respect of the business of the central government.The controversy intensified in March 2024 when the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (Meity) notified the Press Information Bureau’s Fact Check Unit as the designated FCU under the amended rules. The Supreme Court subsequently stayed the notification, citing serious constitutional questions and directing that the FCU not be made operational pending adjudication before the Bombay high court.A division bench of the Bombay high court, comprising justices GS Patel and Neela Gokhale, delivered a split verdict in January 2024. While Justice Patel struck down the rule as unconstitutional, Justice Gokhale upheld it, prompting a reference to a third judge.Justice AS Chandurkar (since elevated to the Supreme Court), acting as the tiebreaker, concurred with justice Patel and held that the impugned amendment was unconstitutional, and beyond the rule-making power under the relevant provisions of the IT Act, 2000. The third judge found the expressions “fake or false or misleading” to be vague and overbroad, lacking objective criteria or safeguards.The rule, he held, effectively made the government “the arbiter in its own cause” and had a chilling effect on intermediaries, who risked losing safe harbour protection if they failed to act on FCU determinations. The high court thus concluded that the amendment did not satisfy the proportionality test required for restrictions on fundamental rights and could not be saved by reading it down.Assailing this verdict in the top court, the Centre contended that the high court “erroneously” struck down the amendment. It argued that there is no constitutional protection for deliberate misinformation and that the rule reinforces the public’s right to receive “true and accurate information” about the functioning of the government.According to the government, the amendment targets only “intentional misinformation” and does not extend to criticism, satire or commentary. It maintained that the FCU’s role is limited to notifying intermediaries about flagged content and does not mandate automatic takedown. The obligation on intermediaries, it says, is merely to make “reasonable efforts.”The Centre has further argued that the expressions “fake”, “false” and “misleading” are not unconstitutionally vague and must be interpreted in their ordinary sense. It has rejected reliance on American free speech jurisprudence, emphasising that India’s constitutional framework permits reasonable restrictions under Article 19(2).