The Supreme Court on Monday sought the central government’s response on a petition seeking regulation or prohibition of obscene content on social media and Over-The-Top (OTT) platforms.
A bench of justices BR Gavai and AG Masih also issued notices to major OTT and social media platforms.
The court, however, cautioned that it might have limited scope for interference and that the government must step in to regulate such content.
“This is either for the legislature or executive. As it is, we are being accused by some of interfering with legislative and executive functions,” the bench said, referring to the recent criticism of the judiciary by Vice-President Jagdeep Dhankhar.
Earlier this month, Dhankhar had criticised the judiciary following the Supreme Court’s ruling on Governor’s assent to state bills and said courts cannot direct the President.
The court was hearing a public interest litigation (PIL) filed by Uday Mahurkar, represented by advocate Vishnu Shankar Jain, who argued that inappropriate content was widely available online without effective checks.
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Solicitor general Tushar Mehta, appearing for the Centre, submitted that while some regulations already exist, additional measures are being contemplated. He echoed concerns over the exposure of children to perverse language and imagery on OTT platforms and said the government was not going to treat the PIL as adversarial.
“In some regular programs, the language is so perverted that two men cannot even sit together and watch,” Mehta said.
The bench agreed, noting that children often access such content unsupervised, particularly when given phones to keep them occupied.
While emphasising that the matter raised significant concerns, the court reiterated that the responsibility for stricter content regulation primarily lies with the legislature and executive.
In his PIL, Mahurkar has sought the court’s intervention saying that there existed an urgent and growing societal concern that “threatened to corrupt the moral fabric of future generations.”
He has claimed that OTT and social media platforms often host obscene content including child pornography and the lack of adequate regulations to check and ban such content was rendering young adults and even children vulnerable to “psychological impact of such exposure.”
The court noted the PIL raised “serious concerns” and agreed to hear it. It tagged the present plea along with similar petitions filed previously so they can be heard together.