New Delhi: In hearings held on November 27, 2025, the Supreme Court of India reiterated the urgent need for a robust regulatory framework for online content, including user-generated content, asking the Union government to draft fresh rules within four weeks – but only after inviting public consultation.

These petitions, though legally distinct, were heard during the same November hearing by a bench led by Chief Justice of India Surya Kant and Justice Joymalya Bagchi. In the first petition, the bench emphasised that the existing self-regulatory mechanisms run by media houses, OTT platforms or intermediary bodies are inadequate to deal with harmful or “per se anti-national” content.

“Self-styled” mechanisms “will not be effective” in regulating online content, Justices Kant and Bagchi noted, while hearing a petition by YouTuber Ranveer Allahbadia and others challenging the FIRs against them over allegedly obscene comments in Samay Raina’s ‘India’s Got Latent’ show, the Indian Express reported on Friday, November 28.

Age-gating content, ‘preventive’ steps

The court has also floated the idea of an independent and autonomous oversight authority, LiveLaw reported a day earlier. The bench suggested that sensitive or adult content may require a reliable age-verification system (age-gating content), possibly using identity documents such as Aadhaar cards, Bar and Bench reported on the same day.

Some of these observations were in response to a petition calling for public consultation on the proposed guidelines, filed by an intervenor who is a member of the Persons with Disabilities community. The concerns raised in this petition were linked to how the draft guidelines of the Union government on “obscene digital content” were circulated privately among select stakeholders.

Supreme Court advocate Prashant Bhushan appeared for this intervenor, and urged the court to ensure that the draft digital content guidelines are placed in the public domain and do not impose overly broad restrictions on free speech.

Bhushan said not doing so violates the Pre-Legislative Consultation Policy, 2014, the Indian Express reported on November 28. The petition also argues that the proposal infringes on freedom of speech rights and conflicts with the landmark Shreya Singhal judgment from 2015.

However, The Hindu newspaper on November 27 reported the Chief Justice of India terming the prosecution of the creator of an offending social media post a “post-occurrence penalty”. He reportedly said, “...we must have preventive mechanisms to ensure there is no spread of misinformation, loss of property as well as sometimes lives...”

In response, Bhushan said, the term ‘anti-national’ was both over-broad and ambiguous.

The court also heard a separate petition, filed in May 2025 by a foundation working for those with Spinal Muscular Atrophy, accusing satirists Samay Raina, Vipun Goyal, Balraj Paramjeet Singh Ghai, Sonali Thakkar and Nishant Jagdish Tanwar of mocking persons with disabilities. According to the New Indian Express, the court on November 27 asked Solicitor General Tushar Mehta to think of a very stringent law on the lines of the Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, where there is “punishment if you demean” people with any disability.

Mehta said at this hearing that humour cannot be at the cost of the dignity of others. The court has asked Raina and the others to raise funds for the specially abled, and raise awareness for their concerns through their work.

The Supreme Court also asked the Union government to put the draft guidelines related to “obscene digital content” under the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021 (also known as IT Rules, 2021), in the public domain for consultation.

Wider challenges to IT Act, Rules

These three cases – Allahbadia’s plea, the petition by the Cure Spinal Muscular Atrophy Foundation and the petition by the PwD community member – are essentially just three branches of a wider set of hearings and regulatory actions that are currently being challenged and heard in the Supreme Court. These deal with the following issues:

• User-generated content or UGC.
• Digital ethics under the 2021 IT Rules.
• Age-verification for digital content.
• The Ministry of Information and Broadcasting’s powers to block content.
• The top court’s proposal for an independent content regulator.
• Concerns over sweeping terms like “anti-national content”.
• Challenges before high courts related to censorship of digital news and content.
• Role of intermediaries, according to the Union government, in digital content monitoring.
• Rules at the state and Union levels to regulate social media influencers.

In November, the Union Ministry of Information and Broadcasting reportedly submitted a note proposing to expand the so-called ethics code (Code of Ethics and Procedure and Safeguards in Relation to Digital Media), which forms Part III of the IT Rules, 2021. (Such a measure was also supported by the government in 2019 as a voluntary ‘industry guideline’ for reporting on elections in that year and in the future.) This, too, came up in the hearings on Friday at the Supreme Court.

The proposed changes include a new definition for “obscene digital content”, content-rating classifications and explicit bans on content deemed “anti-national”, defamatory, or harmful, including provisions covering deepfakes, AI-generated content and content that could denigrate vulnerable groups.

This is the fuller list of restrictions sought by the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting from digital content creators, in its note submitted to the court, as reported by the Indian Express:

[They must not] offend against good taste or decency; deride any race, caste, colour, creed and nationality; contain attack on religions or communities or visuals or words contemptuous of religions groups or which promote communal altitudes [sic]; contain anything obscene, defamatory, deliberate, false and suggestive innuendos and half truths; tend to incite people to crime, cause disorder or violence or breach of law or glorifies violence or obscenity in any way; encourage or incite violence or contain anything against maintenance of law and order or which promote anti-national attitudes; present criminality as desirable; represent indecent, vulgar, suggestive, repulsive or offensive themes; criticise, malign or slander any individual in person or certain groups, segments of social, public and moral life of the country; contain visuals or words which reflect a slandering, ironical and snobbish article in the portrayal of certain ethnic, linguistic and regional groups; the creation sharing/accessing/uploading or depiction in any manner of the figure of a woman, her form or body or any part thereof in such a way as to have the effect of being indecent, or derogatory to women (including objectification of women or perpetuation of harmful stereotypes), or is likely to deprave, corrupt or injure the public morality or morals.”

The Code of Ethics most controversial aspect is its creation of a three-level structure, involving self-regulation by publishers, formation of self-regulatory bodies by publishers and, at the top tier, a oversight mechanism of the Union Information and Broadcasting Ministry.

Several provisions – in particular rules 9(1) and 9(3) – have been stayed by the high courts of Bombay and Kerala, while the Madras high court stayed the IT Rules, 2021, altogether. Critics welcomed this, saying that through these rules and the code, the government was appropriating way too much power over digital content.

Also read: What the Digital Media and Influencer Policies of Five States Say

In an earlier hearing, the Supreme Court had noted that no law (be it the IT Act or rules framed under it) could set up restrictions beyond what the constitution allowed, and that the reasonable restrictions were already wide enough to cover all possibilities in which curbs on freedom of expression may be required. This was also the crux of the Shreya Singhal ruling of the Supreme Court delivered in 2015.

Comedians like Kunal Kamra have also appealed to the Supreme Court against “vague” terms such as “national security”, criticised by the court in the Shreya Singhal ruling (which struck down Section 66A of the IT Act).

This background of the ongoing hearings makes mysterious why the government has returned with proposals seemingly related to reasonable restrictions but using the same terminology being disputed in courts.

Critics point out that these kinds of restrictions must be viewed in their appropriate context, wherein they charge the government with unreasonably restricting free-speech rights of critics of government policies.

Why this matters

Apart from a fresh definition of “obscene digital content”, the Union Ministry of Information and Broadcasting wants rules for AI-generated content and deepfakes, accessibility rules for persons with disabilities, new content categories (U, U/A 7 , 13 , 16 , A) and additional obligations for user-generated content, which it says were not covered clearly enough earlier.

The push for stricter content regulation stems from the government’s claim that there are gaps in the digital governance framework. While the IT Rules, 2021, attempted to regulate digital news and OTT-curated content, much of UGC, such as videos and podcasts on social media platforms, remained beyond effective oversight, according to the government.

It argues that the existing system – based on voluntary self-regulation by platforms or publishers – lacks accountability and often fails to address rapid virality of harmful or obscene content.

The court has now noted, in the latest Allahbadia (‘India’s Got Latent’) hearing on Thursday, that an individual can “create their own YouTube channel” and remain “not accountable to anyone”.

At the same time, the Union Ministry of Information and Broadcasting argues that rising concerns – including defamation, hate speech, deepfake misuse, exploitation of vulnerable communities (such as persons with disabilities) and content accessible to children – necessitate clear regulatory norms.

The problems

There is widespread concern among advocates of civil liberties and legal experts about potential overreach. Terms like “obscene”, “anti-national” or “indecent” are vague and subjective, risking disproportionate censorship or a “chilling effect” on free speech.

Past challenges to the IT Rules, 2021 – including stays on core provisions like the Code of Ethics and the grievance-redressal mechanism – were based on these concerns.

Once again, it is the context, political and social, that defines the concerns raised around the IT Rules, 2021. What may appear commonsensical on paper, is actually implemented within a context, and that consists of largescale internet shutdowns and other control measures, the Indian Express and MediaNama have reported.

Also read: Mapping the Rising Internet Shutdowns in India Since 2016

Further, the proposed changes, new regulations and rules meant for digital media are not operating alone – the government plans regulatory changes that would apply to broadcasting, print and other traditional media as well. Some, like a proposed amendment to the Press Council Act, have raised similar concerns of lack of transparency amongst stakeholders.

What to watch out for

If adopted, India may see a new content regulator and age-verification measures for content and wider government powers for blocking and/or delisting content deemed “obscene” or “anti-national”.

For many creators, OTT platforms and social media users, it could mean stricter compliance, content-rating labels or even pre-upload screening – the lattermost a part of the feared chilling effect.

For these reasons, many of these proposals are likely to continue being contested, especially on the grounds of free speech. Digital platforms and media houses expect the regulators, parliamentarians – and the courts – to frame as well as strike down regulations while keeping in mind the context in which they are meant to operate.

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