Online news portal ‘The Wire’ has moved the Delhi High Court challenging the new digital  rules for social media and OTT platforms, and publishers of digital news that were rolled out by India’s federal government last month, Live Law website reported.

A division bench headed by Chief Justice DN Patel will consider the petition today.

The petition has been filed by ‘Foundation for Independent Journalist’, a trust which owns ‘The Wire’, an online news portal that also crowd-funds its activities.

While the government has reiterated the new rules don’t amount to pre-censorship of digital content—- MIB secretary Amit Khare penned an opinion piece in a newspaper yesterday terming criticism of the new rules as looking for a black cat in a dark room where none exists—- critics have said the move was to muzzle journalistic freedom.

The Editors Guild of India has asked the laws to be repealed.

Incidentally, the Supreme Court is also hearing a case that relates to the new laws under  the The Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code), Rules, 2021, which were notified  on February, 25, 2021 .