The Supreme Court today granted interim protection to Amazon prime Video’s Aparna Purohit from arrest subject to certain conditions, while expressing dissatisfaction on  the Indian government’s newly-notified content guidelines for OTT platforms, according to Live Law legal website.

The apex court said the new rules regulating the OTT platforms have no teeth, adding there were no provisions for prosecution and directed the federal government to place before it on record further action.

Purohit has been directed to cooperate fully with the police investigation.

On February 25, 2021, the Indian government announced sweeping guidelines for SM and OTT platforms, and digital news publishers that in a nutshell could be said to have empowered self-regulation under government oversight. The guidelines seek to put an end to a free run of edgy, highly political and sexual content on streaming services, apart from trying to check spread of misinformation and fake news on SM and on the Internet from within and outside the country emphasizing on identification of  `first originator’ of such messages on SM platforms.

Purohit has been accused of inappropriate depiction of Uttar Pradesh police personnel, Hindu deities and an adverse portrayal of a character playing the prime minister in the web series.

Earlier, the apex court, on January 27, 2021, had declined to grant interim protection from any coercive action to Purohit, Ali Abbas Zafar, director of the web series, producer Himanshu Mehra, the show’s writer Gaurav Solanki and actor Mohammed Zeeshan Ayyub.

It had said that they may seek bail from courts concerned in the first information reports or FIRs lodged in connection with the web series.

Now, Purohit has appealed to the top court against the Allahabad High Court’s February 25 order declining anticipatory bail to her.

A single judge bench of the High Court had said that Purohit had not been vigilant and has acted irresponsibly making her open to criminal prosecution in permitting streaming of a show, which is against the fundamental rights of the majority of citizens of this country and, therefore, her fundamental right of life and liberty cannot be protected by grant of anticipatory bail to her in the exercise of discretionary powers of this court.

While rejecting the plea, the high court had said that the applicant was earlier granted interim protection from arrest by another bench in a similar case but she was not cooperating with the investigation.

On January 19, 2021, an FIR was lodged on the complaint of one Balbir Azad of Raunija village under Rabupura police station of Greater Noida.

In the complaint, Azad alleged that the show depicted Uttar Pradesh and its police in a poor light. The complaint further alleged that the web series had deliberately denigrated Hindu gods and goddesses.

Several other FIRs have also been lodged in states like Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Bihar and Delhi.

‘Tandav’, a nine-episode political thriller starring Bollywood A-listers Saif Ali Khan, Dimple Kapadia and Mohd Zeeshan Ayyub, started streaming recently, PTI reported.