Part III IT Rules 2021: Digital News and OTT Regulation

Part III is the half of the 2021 Rules that regulates speakers rather than carriers: digital news publishers and OTT platforms, publishers of their own content who never enjoyed a safe harbour and had never before answered to a statutory content code. It applies a Code of Ethics, an OTT classification ladder with access controls, and a three tier grievance pyramid with the Government at the top and blocking at its apex, which is why it is also the most constitutionally embattled part of the Rules. Topic 73 placed Part III in the framework; this note, as asked, covers it separately and in full.

1. Whom Part III Covers

Figure 1: The regulated publishers

• Publishers of news and current affairs. Online papers, news portals, news aggregators and news agencies publishing news and current affairs as a systematic business activity, excluding replica e-papers of registered newspapers, which remain with print regulation (definitions in Topic 73)
• Publishers of online curated content: OTT platforms. Services making curated audio-visual content, films, series, documentaries, available to users on demand over the internet.
• Territorial reach. Publishers operating in India, and foreign publishers making content systematically available to Indian users, are covered, the hook by which global streamers answer to the Code.
• Not intermediaries. A publisher chooses and stands behind its content, so Part II's safe harbour world never applied to it; Part III is content regulation proper, administered by the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, to which publishers furnish their particulars.

2. The Code of Ethics

• For news publishers. The Code applies the standards the press already knew: the journalistic conduct norms of the Press Council of India and the programme code under the Cable Television Networks law, imported wholesale for digital news, together with a caution against publishing what affects sovereignty, security, friendly relations or public order.
• For OTT publishers. Three obligations: general restraint from transmitting content the law prohibits, exercise of due caution on themes touching India's multi-racial and multi-religious fabric, and the classification, access control and accessibility scheme below.
• The legal status. The Bombay High Court's stay covers precisely this obligation, the requirement that publishers observe the Code, so the Code's enforcement against publishers stands suspended while the machinery of registration and reporting continues (section 5)

3. The OTT Classification Ladder

Figure 2: The five ratings and the display duty

• Self-classification. The publisher itself classifies every item of curated content into U, U/A 7+, U/A 13+, U/A 16+ or A, by themes, violence, nudity, sex, language, drug use and horror, the film certification vocabulary transplanted to streaming, but without any prior certification board.
• Content descriptors. The rating and descriptors of the concerning content are displayed prominently at the start, so the viewer's choice is informed rather than policed.
• Access control and age verification. A parental lock style access control mechanism for content classified U/A 13+ and above, and a reliable age verification mechanism for content classified A, the two technical duties that operationalise the ladder.
• Accessibility measures. Reasonable efforts to improve access for persons with disabilities, subtitling, audio description and like measures, the Part III echo of the accessibility jurisprudence (Topic 44)

Figure 3: The three technical duties

4. The Three Tier Grievance Mechanism

Figure 4: The pyramid from publisher to Ministry

• Level I: the publisher. Every publisher appoints a grievance officer in India who acknowledges a complaint in 24 hours and decides it within fifteen days, the counterpart of the intermediary's Rule 3(2) officer.
• Level II: self-regulating bodies. Independent bodies constituted by publishers or their associations, registered with the Ministry, each headed by a retired Supreme Court or High Court judge or an eminent person with up to six other members. They hear appeals from Level I and unresolved grievances, and may issue guidance and advisories, warn, censure, require an apology, and advise reclassification, edits or access control changes; content decisions needing blocking go up as references.
• Level III: the oversight mechanism. The Ministry publishes a charter, issues advisories and orders, and constitutes the Inter-Departmental Committee, chaired by the Authorised Officer and drawing representatives from the concerned ministries, which hears appeals from Level II decisions and references, and recommends action to the Ministry, from warnings and apologies to deletion, modification or blocking, blocking travelling through the s.69A machinery.
• Emergency blocking of digital content. Where content falls in the s.69A grounds and delay is not acceptable, the Secretary, Ministry of Information and Broadcasting may direct interim blocking without a prior hearing, the direction being placed before the committee afterward for confirmation, the Part III twin of Rule 9 of the Blocking Rules (Topic 68), and the power used against channels and accounts in the years since.

5. The Constitutional Battles

Figure 5: Where the challenges stand

• Digital news regulation and Article 19(1)(a). The press challenge runs on two rails. Vires: the IT Act legislates on electronic records, signatures and intermediaries, and nowhere empowers rules disciplining the editorial content of publishers, so Part III is said to exceed s.87. Substance: a grievance pyramid ending in a government committee empowered to order deletion and blocking of journalism, on Codes importing broadcast-era standards, is said to chill the press beyond what Article 19(2) permits.
• The stays. In the Leaflet and Nikhil Wagle matters (2021) the Bombay High Court stayed the operation of the Code of Ethics obligation and its enforcement against publishers as prima facie ultra vires and violative of Article 19; the Madras High Court followed with protection in the Digital News Publishers' challenge; other High Courts shielded individual petitioners; and the challenges stand gathered for common adjudication, the registration, furnishing of particulars and grievance appointments continuing meanwhile.
• OTT regulation and freedom of expression. For curated entertainment the debate is classification versus censorship: self-classification with viewer information is the liberal design, but the Level III power to order edits and blocking of fiction, invoked in controversies over series and films, is argued to reintroduce certification by the back door for a medium the Cinematograph Act never covered; creative freedom cases from the pre-Rules era supply the vocabulary.
• The present position. Part III operates in the shape the litigation has left: publishers register, report and run grievance officers; the self-regulating bodies function; but the Code's coercive enforcement against publishers is stayed, and every answer on Part III should carry that qualification (Topic 73)

6. Frequently Asked Questions

How does Part III of the IT Rules regulate OTT platforms?

Through self-regulation with oversight: the platform itself classifies each item of curated content into U, U/A 7+, U/A 13+, U/A 16+ or A, displays the rating and content descriptors prominently, provides parental lock access control for U/A 13+ and above and reliable age verification for A content, and takes accessibility measures. Complaints travel the three tiers, from the platform's grievance officer, to a self-regulating body headed by a retired judge or eminent person, to the Ministry's Inter-Departmental Committee, which can recommend deletion, modification or blocking, with emergency interim blocking by the Secretary, MIB.

What is the constitutional status of Part III?

Contested and partly suspended. The Bombay High Court stayed the operation of the Code of Ethics obligation and its enforcement against publishers as prima facie beyond the rulemaking power of the IT Act and chilling under Article 19(1)(a), the Madras High Court extended protection, and the consolidated challenges await final adjudication. The registration, reporting and grievance machinery continues to operate in the meantime.

7. Related Topics

• Topic 73: IT Rules 2021 Framework. Part III inside the whole scheme.
• Topic 68: Blocking Rules 2009. The s.69A machinery Level III borrows.