The Bench of Justices NV Ramana, Sanjay Kishan Kaul, and BR Gavaid dismissed the plea that urged for directing service providers to make available unlimited and free access to data, DTH and streaming facilities for people confined to their homes amid the COVID-19 lockdown, observing, “what kind of petitions are being filed?”
The petitioner, Advocate Manohar Pratap, had sought directions to service providers such as Bharti Airtel, RelianceJio, Amazon Services, and others to provide free and uninterrupted calling, data, and streaming services during the COVID-19 lockdown in the interest of “psychological health” of citizens.
The petition stated,
“If such directions are not passed there is high probability that respondents will not provide any free services of communication and entertainment to the citizens during lockdown which is detrimental to the life and liberty of the citizens. It will further result in injury to the psychological health of the public at large thereby resulting in gross violation of Right to life guaranteed under Article 21 of the Constitution of India”.
Consumption of entertainment content through satellite services, including DTH services and streaming facilities such as Netflix and Amazon Prime, will help in lowering psychological stress caused due to confinement, the plea went on to state.
“The humans are social and emotional beings who requires social interactions, various modes of entertainment to keep their psychological well-being in good form.”
And it was prayed,
“…in order to provide basic human need of social interaction and entertainment, the respondents may be directed to offer the services completely free and unlimited.”
