On Tuesday, notification signed by President Ram Nath Kovind was issued by the Cabinet Secretariat regarding regulation of OTT platforms in India. Recently, a PIL was filed for regulating the OTT platforms by an autonomous body, regarding which the Apex Court had sought Centre’s response.
The Plea was moved by Supreme Court advocates Apurva Arhatia and Shashank Shekhar Jhafor a check and supervision of content on Over the top platforms.
Many cases are being filed for objection over the content on platforms like Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, Alt Balaji, etc. Many demanded strict censorship and removal of objectionable content from the same. Prior to this, there was no body monitoring the content on these platforms.
The plea also stated that the platforms have not complied with the self-regulation mandated and provided by the I&B Ministry.
With passing of this notification, video-content-streaming platforms will come under the sphere of Ministry of Information and Broadcasting. Now, the ministry can watch over the content, audio, visuals that are available online, majorly on these platforms.
The decision came in through powers conferred to amend the Govt. of India (Allocation of Business) Rules, 1961 by Article 77(3) of the Constitution of India.
