The Association of Indian Magazines (AIM) has commended the Bombay High Court's decision to strike down the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Amendment Rules, 2023, deeming them unconstitutional. 

AIM, represented by a legal team from the Internet Freedom Foundation, had filed a petition in June 2023 challenging the amendments as violative of free speech and outside the scope of the IT Act, 2000. 

The petition was drafted by the legal team of the Internet Freedom Foundation, comprising Gautam Bhatia, Vrinda Bhandari, Abhinav Sekhri, Tanmay Singh, Radhika Roy and Gayatri Malhotra. The petition was filed by Adv. Aditi Saxena in Bombay High Court. 

Specifically, the court nullified Rule 3, which would have allowed the Central Government to establish Fact-Check Units (FCUs) to label content related to its business on social media as 'fake' or 'misleading'.

On 20 September 2024, Justice Chandurkar stated that the amendments violated Articles 14 and 19 of the Indian Constitution. The case was escalated to him after a split verdict in January 2024, where Justice Patel ruled against the rule, citing censorship concerns, while Justice Gokhale supported its validity based on misinformation targeting.

Justice Chandurkar, while striking down the rules, further opined that the amendments also violated Article 21 and did not satisfy the "test of proportionality". 

The court's ruling marks a significant victory for media organisations, press associations, and digital rights groups that opposed the controversial provisions.