THE Supreme Court on Friday refused to stay proceedings in connection with petitions challenging the constitutional validity of the Centre’s new IT rules before various High Courts.

The Centre had moved the Supreme Court seeking transfer of all petitions to it, citing multiplicity of proceedings. Several High Courts, including Delhi, Bombay, Madras and Kerala High Courts are hearing petitions against the IT rules.

In its plea, the Centre said, the issue of regulating the OTT platform was pending before the top court.

A bench comprising of Justices A M Khanwilkar and Sanjiv Khanna tagged the Central Government petition, seeking transfer of all such cases to the top court, with an appeal filed by Justice for Rights Foundation, which is pending before the court. The bench also refused to pass a direction for an interim stay on the proceedings before various High Courts hearing pleas challenging the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021. Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, representing the Centre, submitted that there were cases pending before the top court challenging the IT Rules.

The bench replied: “We will tag with a pending SLP.” The bench did not pay heed to the Centre’s request to stay the proceedings. The bench said: “We will not pass that order today. We are just tagging and list before appropriate bench on July 16.”

WHATSAPP on Friday accepted that “the Government is the administrator” in its case and informed the Delhi High Court that it will put its privacy policy update “on hold” until the Data Protection Bill came into force.

This is a significant development after the new Information Technology Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw made it crystal clear within minutes of taking charge that “law of the land is supreme” and no one can afford to disrespect it.

WhatsApp’s counsel also accepted that its commitment is “we need to fit in the law”. Senior advocate Harish Salve, representing WhatsApp, submitted before a bench comprising Chief Justice D N Patel and Justice Jyoti Singh, “We will not enforce it until the Data Protection Bill will come out. In our case the Govt is the administrator of the rules... we said okay, we will wait till the Bill.”

The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MEITY) has communicated to WhatsApp that it feels that its privacy policy is against the Information Technology (Reasonable Security Practices and Procedures and Sensitive Personal Data or Information), Rules 2011. He added that his client replied to the Ministry’s notice that WhatsApp will not limit functionality for some time and