Court rejects plea seeking regulation on Netflix, Amazon Prime

The Delhi High Court on Friday dismissed a plea seeking to regulate content of online platforms like Netflix, Amazon Prime Video and others.

A bench of Chief Justice Rajendra Menon and Justice V. Kameswar Rao rejected the plea filed by an NGO, Justice for Rights Foundation through advocate Harpreet S. Hora who has sought laws or guidelines for regulating vulgar and sexually explicit content available on these platforms.

The court order came after the Central government told it that online platforms are not required to obtain licences from the government to run their programmes.

"Online platforms are not required to obtain any licences from the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting and the content on online platforms is not being regulated by this Ministry," the Centre told a bench of Chief Justice Rajendra Menon and Justice V. Kameswar Rao.

The court was hearing an NGO, Justice for Rights Foundation, plea filed by advocate Harpreet S. Hora who has sought laws or guidelines for regulating vulgar and sexually explicit content available on these platforms.

The petitioner told the court that a complaint with the police has already been filed but no action has been taken.

The court asked the petitioner to seek appropriate remedies on his complaint.

The plea has also sought removal of vulgar and sexually explicit content from online platforms like Netflix, Amazon Prime Video and others.

The petitioner said online platforms offered vulgar, sexually explicit, pornographic, profane, virulent, religiously forbidden and morally unethical contents in order to attract more subscribers and generate profit.

The NGO alleged that most of the content available was in violation of the Indian Penal Code and the Information Technology Act.

--IANS

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