Courting controversy: The good, the bot and the ballot

Two absolutely unrelated legal developments can be flagged for February 20, 2026.

At one end of the spectrum lies the coming into force of the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Amendment Rules, 2026 (the IT Rules), amending the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021.

At the other end lies the order passed by the Supreme court of India in Mostari Banu v. The Election Commission of India, a case that had the personal appearance of a sitting Chief Minister arguing against the implementation of the Election Commission of India’s Special Intensive Revision (SIR) for the upcoming elections in the State of West Bengal.

Both of these developments are joined at the hip, only because of the extraordinary impact they will have in times to come. While the IT Rules are meant to address safety concerns on the internet by strengthening the due diligence obligations of social media intermediaries vis-a-vis artificial intelligence (AI) generated content on social media, the order passed by the Supreme Court was to allay the concerns of the petitioners in the SIR case that had second-guessed the diligence being conducted by the Election Commission.

There is no doubt in anyone’s mind that the growth of AI will have a significant impact on the society at large. What the IT Rules introduce and regulate is Synthetically Generated Information (SGI). This can be described as synthetic media in the form of audio or visual content, that may appear to depict a real person or a real-world event in a manner capable of misleading viewers into believing that it is genuine. For example, the introduction of platforms such as Moltbook, a Reddit-style social media platform designed exclusively for artificial intelligence bots to communicate with one another, where humans are relegated to the role of passive observers. It is a digital ecosystem that sits somewhere between The Truman Show and Westworld, except that the actors are algorithms and the audience is human.

What the IT Rules do is that every instance of SGI published on social media must be (i) noticeably labelled to indicate that it has been synthetically generated and (ii) embedded with permanent metadata identifying the computer resource of the intermediary used to create, generate, modify or alter such information [Rule 3(3)(ii)]. The effect of this Rule is significant because all AI generated content becomes easily identifiable on social media, protecting the society from misinformation, fake news and deceptive advertisements.

Seemingly on the other end of the spectrum is the SIR order. Rarely has the Supreme Court observed that its own order is extraordinary. The SIR order, albeit short, interestingly makes the observation of it being extraordinary on three occasions. While it is apparent that the underlying basis of the Supreme Court to have passed the SIR order was to ensure that there was no disenfranchisement of genuine voters (a concern that was allayed by the petitioners), there are two grounds as to why it is unprecedented. 

One, because never in the past have judicial officers been required to conduct a judicial review of the claims by persons who may have been unjustifiably removed from the electoral rolls and make immediate decisions, at a speed unseen in the past. The second, it requires members of two independent constitutional bodies to work together for the protection of democracy that lies at the heart of India’s social contract. The fact that this arrangement leaves open (i) the manner by which judicial officers will work along with officers of the ECI and pass orders and (ii) the nature of those orders, can perhaps be revisited on another occasion.

It is apparent that both the IT Rules and the SIR order will have a common significant impact on society because they are meant to achieve a purpose that can only be described to be good, whether it be of the Bot or the Ballot.

Nakul Dewan is a Senior Advocate and King’s Counsel.