Staff Reporter
Guwahati: The Gauhati High Court dismissed a public interest litigation asking the government to control or limit unqualified social media influencers in sensitive areas, telling the petitioner to go to the right government department or forum for action, and noted that while regulation is needed, the HC is not the right place to handle such matters.
The HC observed that any restriction on these kinds of content creation would not be possible without impinging or violating the right to free speech.
The direction pertains to a PIL, or public interest litigation (Case No.: PIL/41/2026), filed by Divyansh Rathi.
The division bench of Chief Justice Ashutosh Kumar and Justice Arun Dev Choudhury termed it a ‘peculiar petition’ filed before the court under the rubric PIL, which highlighted that there has been a rapid and unregulated growth of social media influencers and content creators, who give advice on screen on issues which are highly sensitive and fall in the technical domain of health, medicine, nutrition, finance, law, education, real estate, child welfare, etc.
The court pointed out that the grievance of the petitioner is that there is no regulatory mechanism to ensure that only people competent to advise or influence are allowed to display their contents before the public at large. According to him, such content creators, on these sensitive aspects of life, do not have any formal qualification, degree or licence. It has been asserted that regulatory oversight is absent.
Yet another grievance of the petitioner is that these content creators, who are beyond any regulatory mechanism of the state, make money from the number of followers. “What is questionable is that these content creators/influencers get projected, because of the large number of followers, as professionals, which possibly could misguide the gullible viewers,” the petitioner stated.
Another concern of the petitioner is that with this unregulated content creation and its display, the respectability of the professionals in the respective domain/fields would stand considerably eroded.
The court also observed that few of the examples cited by the petitioner are legal influencers, who may be giving advice without them being law graduates. Similarly, there is a possibility of even unregistered real estate brokers influencing or promoting unregistered projects or lands which are in dispute.
“Under such circumstances, the prayer of the petitioner is that the State must be directed to regulate or restrict such unqualified influencers in sensitive fields and make it incumbent upon such influencers to disclose their qualifications or credentials. There ought to be disclaimers in such a projection if it is meant for entertainment,” the court cited.
The court observed that while the concern of the petitioner cannot be stated to be ‘frivolous’, it held that the issue before it was whether any restriction on these kinds of content creation would be possible without impinging or violating the right to free speech.
Pointing out that regulation at all levels is required, the bench stated that the HC would not be the forum for deciding such issues and advised the petitioner “to approach the concerned Department/fora of the Government for necessary action in this regard”. The court disposed of the petition with the afore-noted observation.
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