Supreme Court Refuses to Register Petition Against Social Media Ban ?

Kathmandu: The Supreme Court has refused to register a writ petition challenging the government’s decision to ban social media. Advocate Dr. Sunil Ranjan Singh had filed the petition in the Supreme Court, naming the Office of the Prime Minister and Council of Ministers at Singha Durbar as respondents. The petition sought an interim order to stop the government from immediately enforcing the ban on social media platforms.

However, the court declined to register the case. It stated that since the government has already issued a seven-day notice for platforms to get listed, the petition could not be admitted.

The Supreme Court said, “In the contempt of court case 080-CF-0012 filed by the petitioner against the Deputy Registrar of the Supreme Court regarding Sidhakura.com, the full bench of this court issued an order dated 2081/06/13 in the name of the Government of Nepal to ‘mandatorily register social media platforms with the competent authority before operation, and to make digital media and social media responsible and accountable by evaluating and monitoring such unwanted content.’ Therefore, the present petition, filed under the extraordinary jurisdiction of this court to quash the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology’s notification and letter dated 2082/05/19 to deactivate unregistered social media platforms, cannot be registered.”

On the Ministry of Communications’ proposal, the Cabinet meeting on 9 Bhadra decided to publicly call on social media platforms to register within seven days. Based on this, the Ministry issued a notification on 12 Bhadra, giving platforms a week to comply. When the deadline expired, the government announced a ban on 26 social media platforms last Thursday, saying they had not even responded to the registration process.

Following this, lawyers and law students began approaching the Supreme Court with writ petitions. Since Friday, dozens of petitions have been filed, with more than 12 groups registering separate writs against the ban on Sunday alone.

 

पछिल्लो अध्यावधिक: भदौ २३, २०८२ १३:५

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