This is because the Emergency (Essential Powers) Ordinance (No. 2) 2021 along with other ordinances enacted during the emergency will expire at the latest six months after the emergency is lifted.

The state of emergency is scheduled to end on Aug 1.

“The ordinance has not been scheduled to be discussed during the upcoming special Parliament sitting,” he said in an online press conference today.

However, Saifuddin gave an assurance that the annulment of the ordinance after the Emergency is lifted would not disrupt ongoing investigations into cases of fake news.

“There are other existing laws, such as the Sedition Act and the Communications and Multimedia Act (1998), which can be used to handle these cases.”

Speaking at the same conference, deputy CID (intelligence/operations) director Dev Kumar said there had been a significant decrease in fake news trends since the enforcement of the fake news ordinance.

“Before the emergency, there was a monthly average of 24 cases of fake news. With the ordinance, it has dropped to an average of seven cases a month,” he said.

This was because the fake news ordinance helped to speed up investigations, he added.

Saifuddin noted that the ministry’s quick response team had rebutted a total of 465 fake news items since March 2020, with most of the cases involving religion, the royals and race.

This year alone, until July 11, a total of 49 fake news items had been repelled.

He added that a total of 282 fake news cases had been reported since March last year, of which legal action was taken in 29 cases under the fake news ordinance.

However, he stressed that legal action was not the sole approach to handle misinformation in the country. Other efforts such as advocacy were also adopted.