Nikhil Bhalla, the advocate petitioning to remove certain dialogues from Netflix’s Sacred Games, has now amended his petition to ask the government to create a regulatory board for online streaming companies. Bhalla confirmed the amendment to MediaNama. The next hearing for this case will be held on October 20. The Indian government is examining regulating online content through an IT Ministry committee, after an online content regulation committee set up by the I&B Ministry was disbanded. In July, we reported that the I&B Ministry had disbanded its online content regulation committee, which was set up in April by former I&B Minister Smriti Irani. Following a cabinet reshuffle, Rajyavardhan Rathore took over from Irani, leading the ministry to switch to a softer tone on regulating online content. An RTI filing by Medianama revealed that the committee hadn’t met even once. Read: - Some Video on Demand cos want to create a regulatory content code before the government does it - As India looks to regulate Internet content, some issues to consider A timeline of the case On 8 August, Chander Lal, the senior advocate representing Netflix, told the Delhi HC, “My instructions are that we don’t want to change the word.” The judges hearing the case were quoted as saying during arguments, “Nobody is pressing or forcing you. You take your own decision, whether you want to change the word or not. We are not going to compel you.” In the 16 July hearing, Netflix told the court that it had…
