BREAKING| Supreme Court To Hear Next Week Petitions Challenging Centre's Ban On BBC Documentary About Narendra Modi

The Supreme Court on Monday agreed to hear on February 6 plea challenging the challenging the decision of the Central Government to block the BBC's documentary “India: The Modi Question”.

One petition has been filed by serial litigant Advocate ML Sharma. Another petition has been filed by journalist N. Ram, Advocate Prashant Bhushan and some others.

Sharma mentioned the petition before Chief Justice of India DY Chandrachud for urgent listing. CJI agreed to list the matter next Monday.

Mentioning the second petition, Senior Advocate CU Singh said that Centre has invoked emergency powers under IT Rules to remove the links about the documentary from social media. He added that tweets of N Ram and Advocate Prashant Bhushan were taken down. Singh further stated that the Centre has not yet formally publicised the blocking order.  Students are getting rusticated from universities for screening the documentary, he added. CJI agreed to list the matter.

Sharma's petition terms the Centre's ban on the two-part documentary as “malafide, arbitrary and unconstitutional”.

On January 21, the  Ministry of the Information and Broadcasting reportedly invoked its emergency powers under the IT Rules 2021 to direct the removal of the links from YouTube and Twitter, when the first part of the documentary, which deals with the Gujarat riots of 2002 which happened when Narendra Modi was the Chief Minister of the State. 

In his petition, Sharma argued that the citizens have the right to see news, facts and reports on the 2002 Gujarat riots and the Centre's decision has infringed citizens' right to information under Article 19(1)(a) of the Constitution.

“Whether without having an emergency declared under Article 352 of the Constitution of India by the President, emergency provisions can be invoked by the Central government?”, the plea asks.