Centre’s response sought on pleas seeking compensation for wrongful prosecutions
The Supreme Court has sought the Centre’s response on petitions seeking compensation for victims of wrongful prosecution. The petitions filed by Ashwini Kumar Upadhyay and Kapil Mishra cited the example of a rape accused, Vishnu Tiwari, who was recently acquitted by Allahabad High Court after spending 20 years in prison.
The petitioners sought guidelines and mechanism to take action and prosecute fake complainants and a framework to pay adequate compensation to the victims of wrongful prosecution. A bench headed by Justice UU Lalit remarked that the current mechanism under criminal law is sufficient to deal with the issues raised, but agreed to hear the plea on the ground of granting compensation to victims of wrongful prosecution.
Petitions for OTT content regulation in high courts stayed by Justice Chandrachud’s bench
The Supreme Court on Tuesday stayed all petitions seeking regulation of content on over-the-top (OTT) platforms, including Netflix and Amazon Prime pending in high courts across the country. The order by a bench led by Justice DY Chandrachud came on a transfer plea moved by the Centre to club all petitions filed in various high courts.
The top court issued notices to all petitioners, who have filed pleas in Punjab and Haryana, Madhya Pradesh and Allahabad high courts, on the plea by the ministries of information and broadcasting, electronics and technology and law and justice. The Centre also filed its affidavit and told the court that the Information Technology Rules, 2021 have been put in place to regulate OTT platforms and digital media.