We had filed an RTI Application with the the Ministry of Information & Broadcasting (‘MIB’) seeking information about certain notices issued by MIB to publishers of news media asking them to furnish information under Rule 18 of the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021 (‘IT Rules’). While the MIB revealed that 2100 publishers have furnished information already, it refused to provide information on how many notices were sent to publishers and why they were sent despite the stay on operation of Rules 9(1) and 9(3) of the IT Rules. Accordingly, we filed a first appeal on 25.01.2022. Now, in appeal proceedings, MIB has claimed that all 2100 publishers voluntarily offered information about themselves in a fiduciary capacity and has refused to provide further information citing exemptions under the Right to Information Act, 2005 (‘RTI Act’) and made some interesting observations.
This is a companion discussion topic for the original entry at https://internetfreedom.in/rule-18-it-rules-rti-appeal/