What happens when fabricated news is amplified through digital platforms? Examining a recent Delhi High Court matter, this piece explores India’s legal response to misinformation, the role of intermediaries, and the need to move beyond takedowns towards more effective institutional accountability.
IN A RECENTLY CONCLUDED MATTER, the Badminton Association of India (“BAI”) moved the Delhi High Court in BAI v. Union of India & Anr., 2026, for seeking appropriate directions for the takedown of misleading, factually incorrect, and allegedly motivated reporting, statements, publications, posts, and related content concerning the Hon’ble Judges of the Constitutional Courts.
The news reports and social media posts in question claimed that the Judges were a part of the 2nd International Bar & Bench Badminton Championship held in London on 07 June 2026, as per the facts presented in the case.
The All India Lawyers Union (“AILU”), through its President and General Secretary, condemned the event as a “vulgar display of inappropriate and objectionable collaboration” between the judiciary, the law ministry and the corporate entities. The AILU asserted that the participation of the Hon’ble Chief Justice of India and more than 100 sitting Judges was characterised as a “violent negation” of the Bangalore Principles of Judicial Conduct, 2002, and as compromising the independence of the judiciary. The AILU also stated that such events could erode public faith in the judiciary and cause severe deleterious impact on democracy.
The pictures accompanying the news reports and social media posts were actually drawn from old pictures taken during the All India Judges’ Badminton Championship held on 29 November 2025 at Thyagaraj Stadium, New Delhi, India, as clarified by the Press Information Bureau’s Fact-Check Unit (“FCU”) on 10 June 2026. The FCU also clarified that publications concerning the visit of Shri Kiren Rijiju, Hon’ble Union Minister of Parliamentary Affairs, and Shri Arjun Ram Meghwal, Hon’ble Minister of State for Law & Justice, to London for a badminton event with Judges were entirely false.
As per the facts presented in the case, the Ministry of Law and Justice issued an official statement on 11 June 2026 clarifying that reports alleging the participation of Shri Arjun Ram Meghwal, Hon’ble Union Minister of State (Independent Charge), Ministry of Law & Justice, along with 75 Judges of the Hon’ble Supreme Court and various High Courts in the event, were false and misleading. The learned Solicitor General of India and the learned Additional Solicitor General of India submitted that the Hon’ble Chief Justice of India was on an official visit to London for a few days in June 2026, and his visit had no connection to any badminton tournament being organised in London. Further, the fact that the Hon’ble Law Minister had gone to London with 75 Hon’ble Judges was absolutely false.
The Delhi High Court noted that the concerned publications were “ex-facie false, malicious and derogatory to the Judiciary, the Executive and the sport of Badminton.” The false narrative that these publications sought to propagate related to the argument that the Hon’ble Judges and Hon’ble Union Ministers undertook foreign travel, at public expense, to participate in a sporting event.
It seems that by supporting the purported claims with photographs taken at a national-level badminton event, the news reports and social media posts in question sought to portray the esteemed members of the judiciary and the law ministry in a bad light. Such fake news and misinformation also severely undermine the public perception of sporting events. The BAI is the governing body for Badminton in India and conducts tournaments across the country. While the fake news and misinformation campaigns targeted esteemed members of the judiciary and the law ministry, the BAI’s integrity also came under public scrutiny.
The reality of a post-truth world
We live in a post-truth world wherein ‘objective facts are less influential in shaping public opinion than appeals to emotion and personal belief’, and people are arguably increasingly interested in news items that might require them to act on their emotions rather than the objective truth. The public perception of facts and the truth could be shaped by the normative preferences of how people would like the truth to be, and recent instances of several misinformation narratives gaining widespread recognition reflect the unfortunate trend of how there might be reporting of news without adequate fact-checking, and without due regard for the stakeholders who are involved in these false narratives.
Such rampant fake news and misinformation campaigns can be extremely detrimental to any member of society; therefore, it is time to take concrete steps to ensure the well-being and safety of everyone targeted or affected by such campaigns. In Facebook v. Delhi Legislative Assembly, (2021), the Supreme Court of India noted, in reference to the 2016 US Presidential Elections and Brexit, that, “The obfuscation of facts, abandonment of evidentiary standards in reasoning, and outright lying in the public sphere left many aghast. A lot of blame was sought to be placed at the door of social media, it being a source of this evolving contemporary phenomenon where objective truth is becoming a commodity with diminishing value.”
In the present matter, the Delhi High Court directed the respondents to “forthwith issue an appropriate Notification under the Information Technology Act, 2000 and the Rules framed thereunder or any other applicable law, in terms of the present Order, directing all concerned intermediaries, including social media intermediaries, significant social media intermediaries, search engines, webhosting platforms, digital media platforms, internet service providers and other online service providers, to take down, remove, block, disable, deindex and restrict access to the Impugned Content, including fake and fabricated news, articles, videos and related material featuring or purporting to depict the alleged participation, association or involvement of the Hon’ble Chief Justice of India, Hon’ble Judges of the Supreme Court of India and the High Courts, and Hon’ble Union Ministers in the 2nd International Bar & Bench Badminton Championship held in London on 07.06.2026, together with any identical, mirrored, modified, edited, clipped, reproduced, reuploaded, derivative or substantially similar versions thereof, by specifying the URLs including the URLs contained in Annexure-A to this Order”, inter alia.
The existing legal system to mitigate fake news and misinformation in India
A recent press release by the Ministry of Information & Broadcasting noted the role of the PIB’s FCU in mitigating misinformation and fake news circulating online in relation to Operation Sindoor. The relevant provisions of the Information Technology Act, 2000 (“IT Act”) in this context are Sections 69A and 79(3)(b).
Section 69A could be extremely useful in curbing fake news and misinformation in India. Under this provision, the Government issues necessary orders to block websites, social media handles and posts in the interest of sovereignty and integrity of India, defence of India, security of the State, friendly relations with foreign States, or public order. Further, Section 79(3)(b) specifies that the internet intermediaries lose their ‘safe harbour’, which protects them from liability for third-party content if they fail to promptly remove or block access to unlawful material after receiving actual knowledge or on being notified of the same by the appropriate government or its agency.
To curb unlawful information, Section 79(3)(b) of the IT Act, read along with Rule 3(1)(d) of the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021 (“IT Rules 2021”) facilitates the removal or blocking of access to such information post the issuance of an order by a court of competent jurisdiction or on being notified by the appropriate government or its agency.
Part III of the IT Rules 2021 also provides for a Code of Ethics to guide the conduct of publishers of news and current affairs on digital media and of publishers of online curated content. The IT Rules 2021 establish a three-level institutional mechanism for the redressal of grievances arising from violations of the Code of Ethics by such publishers. The first level deals with self-regulation by the publishers, the second level deals with self-regulation by the self-regulating bodies of the publishers, and the third level deals with the oversight mechanism by the Central Government.
Therefore, while it seems that the legal system to address the rise of fake news and misinformation exists, the path to its proper implementation has not yet been fully realised. It is high time that the relevant authorities invest adequate time and resources in sensitisation programmes and develop a meaningful dialogue with social media platforms to ensure that the interests of all members of the public in India are safeguarded against fake news and misinformation campaigns.
Further, it is pertinent to note that while the PIB’s FCU was rather prompt in this matter, there must be a robust mechanism in place to ensure that the fact-checking process is completed swiftly for all relevant cases. The Standing Committee on Communications and Information Technology, in its 26th Report (2026), has recommended that the PIB’s FCU should be strengthened through the integration of Artificial Intelligence (“AI”) tools in the fact-checking process.
It states that the technological capabilities of PIB’s FCU should be enhanced, including through “the use of artificial intelligence tools for real-time monitoring of misinformation trends, improved coordination with social media platforms to facilitate faster identification and removal of misleading content”.
The integration of AI tools would enable a quicker response to a crisis concerning fake news and misinformation, empower the affected stakeholders to take necessary action sooner, and ensure that the relevant digital platforms that have participated in the spread of such fake news and misinformation are notified about the removal of such content as soon as possible.
Mr. Apoorv Kurup, the learned Senior Counsel for the petitioner in BAI v. Union of India & Anr., in an exclusive interview with the author, stated that, “This case has shown that prompt fact-checking by a neutral agency can reshape public opinion so that it is based on truth and not misconceptions. Such fact-checking units need to be strengthened and well-funded to counter growing misinformation and AI-generated news.”
