Supreme Court Asks Centre To Publicise CAA To Clarify Doubts And Counter Fake News 

The Supreme Court on Wednesday (18 December) asked the Centre to consider a plea seeking publicity of the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) to clarify doubts that were contributing to circulation of fake news.

A Bench, headed by Chief Justice S A Bobde and comprising Justices B R Gavai and Surya Kant, taking not of plea of Ashwini Upadhyay, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader and lawyer, said the Centre could examine giving publicity to the aims, objectives and benefits of the Act.

Ashwini said he was not against the new law, but wanted a direction to authorities to spread awareness about it. Claiming that he have visited areas of protests, he said the majority of protesters were not aware of the details, making room for miscreants to circulate damaging material on the Act.

When the court said the prayer in the plea seemed unusual and asked Attorney General K K Venugopal, "Do you need a court order on it," he said the court order was not required on the plea as "it's necessary and there are misunderstandings."

Earlier, the apex court had agreed to hear Upadhyaya's plea seeking a direction to the central, Delhi, UP and West Bengal governments to publicise aims, objectives and the benefits of the Act to counter fake news.

"Publish aims, objects and benefits of the Citizenship (Amendment) Act in newspapers and through news channels to root out doubts being created by miscreants and to make common man aware about the Act", said the plea.

(This story has been published from a wire agency feed without modifications to the text. Only the headline has been changed.)