The Supreme Court today issued a stay on a batch of petitions, filed in lower courts, related to the Indian government’s regulations for streaming services, medianama quoted from tweets of Bar & Bench and Live Law as saying.

This essentially puts a hold on litigation concerning streaming regulations going on in lower courts. Cases in courts like the Punjab & Haryana High Court will be stayed. The Supreme Court will hear these cases two weeks after Holi, which falls around April 12, the reports said.

Earlier this month, the government notified the Information Technology (Guidelines for Intermediaries and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021, which would require streaming services to set up — and submit to — a three-tier grievance redressal mechanism where complaints on content on OTT platforms like Netflix and Hotstar will be heard by streaming services, a self-regulatory body they are a part of, and finally by an inter-ministerial committee formed by the government.