IT Rules challenge: Justice AS Chandurkar of Bombay High Court to break the tie after split verdict by division bench

Justice AS Chandurkar of Bombay High Court will decide the plea challenging the validity of the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Amendment Rules, 2023, specifically Rule 3, which gives power to the Central government to form Fact Check Units (FCUs). .Chief Justice Devendra Kumar Upadhyaya passed an order assigning the matter to Justice Chandurkar after a division bench delivered a split verdict earlier..The petitions before the High Court have challenged the provision for formation of Fact Check Units (FCUs) empowered under the new Information Technology Rules to identify and tag 'false' or 'fake' online news with respect to Central government.A division bench of Justice GS Patel and Neela Gokhale had on January 31 delivered a split verdict on the validity of the amendments including Rule 3 which gives power to the Central government to form FCUs.While Justice Patel ruled in favour of the petitioners and struck down the provision, Justice Gokhale dismissed the petition and upheld the validity of the Rule.Accordingly, the CJ appointed Justice Chandurkar to give his tie-breaking opinion..Meanwhile, the matter was listed today before a bench headed by Justice Patel who informed the parties that a third judge has been assigned the matter to break the tie. .One of the petitioners, stand up comic Kunal Kamra had filed an application claiming that the third judge could only consider the point of difference of opinions and had no jurisdiction to grant interim relief.Senior advocate Navroz Seervai appearing for Kamra argued before the division bench today that it was the division bench which has to take care of the prevailing status quo till the third judge gives his decision..The division bench, however, said that the statement to not notify the FCU was made by Solicitor General (SG) Tushar Mehta on instructions by the government and it was not an interim order passed by the Court. "The interim applications in our view, need to be decided by the reference judge as well since we are not between ourselves, in agreement on the continuance of the previous status. We specifically state that even today we have not agreed on the continuance of ad-interim or interim relief, at least not beyond the period with which Mehta has agreed to extend," the Court ordered. .Appearing for the Ministry of Electronics, Information and Technology (MeITY), Solicitor General Tushar Mehta said that his earlier assurance that the government will not notify the formation of FCUs, will continue till the third judge takes up hearing on the application of notifying FCUs