The Supreme Court of India on Friday (3) issued a notice to the Narendra Modi government seeking a report within three weeks over an appeal against the ban of a controversial BBC documentary on prime minister Modi and allegations linked to the riots in the western state of Gujarat in 2002.
The apex court asked for the original record to take down the documentary from public space.
It acted on a petition brought by veteran journalist N Ram, activist lawyer Prashant Bhushan, and Trinamool Congress parliamentarian Mahua Moitra which asked that the government be stopped from censoring the BBC documentary.
The petitioners challenged the use of emergency powers to censor the documentary and take down its links from social media.
A separate petition by lawyer ML Sharma said the government never formally publicised the blocking order and called the ban on the two-part series "malafide, arbitrary, and unconstitutional".
In January, the Modi government issued directions using emergency provisions under the Information Technology Rules, 2021, for blocking several YouTube videos and Twitter posts sharing links to the documentary titled 'India: The Modi Question'.
Following the ban, the series was shared by various opposition leaders, including Moitra, and students' organisations and opposition parties organised public screenings.
There were even instances of students clashing with authorities and police in several campuses of universities in India after not being given permission to hold the screenings. Some were even detained briefly.
The government called the documentary a "propaganda piece" lacking objectivity.
A Supreme Court-appointed probe had found no evidence of wrongdoing by Modi, who was the chief minister of Gujarat where the riots broke out in February 2002.
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