A bench of the Supreme Court (SC) presided over by Chief Justice S A Bobde expressed strong displeasure over an affidavit by the Union government, referring to a self-regulatory mechanism like News Broadcasting Standards Authority (NBSA).

The Supreme Court on Tuesday asked the Centre to create a mechanism to deal with the fake news circulated in TV and other media. The bench told Solicitor General Tushar Mehta We want to know the mechanism employed by you and this affidavit has nothing on it. Why should we refer to NBSA etc when you have the authority to look into it. If it does not exist then you create an authority else we will hand it over to an outside agency.

Mehta agreed to file an elaborate affidavit.

The court was hearing a petition by Jamiat Ulama-I-Hind, alleging “communal headlines and bigoted statements” by a section of media on Tablighi Jamaat participants in Nizamuddin Markaz here in March 2020. It said Section 20 of the Cable TV Network Act, provided the remedy in case of bad reporting.