PUBG Mobile: Ministry clarifies, No penalty for individuals playing PUBG Mobile Korean version

The Indian Esports industry was divided recently on the debate of whether it was ethical and legal for content creators and streamers in the country to play the Korean version of PUBG Mobile in their videos or on their streams respectively.

The controversial topic stretched to a point that a certain law student by the name of Prasoon Shekhar filed an RTI to the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) for clarification on a few grounds mentioned below:

Prasoon Shekhar had sought the following information in his application under the Right to Information Act: 1.

Provide the provision of law that governs what happens if somebody disobeys the ban imposed on Chinese applications like PUBG Mobile.

What is the maximum punishment and penalty that can be imposed on the defaulter, if at all?

Provide the number of persons prosecuted (till date of reply to RTI application) for violating the imposed ban and restrictions on Chinese applications.

There is no penalty prescribed for individual users of mobile apps such as TikTok, PUBG, CamScanner, UC Browser etc which were blocked by the Ministry citing security concerns.

However, according to Section 69A of the Information Technology Act, there is a penalty prescribed for intermediaries who don’t comply with the blocking orders.

“MeitY does not ban any App. However blocking of specified Apps was done under the provisions of Section 69A of the Information Technology Act, 2000 and its Rules namely Information Technology (Procedure and Safeguards for Blocking Access of Information by the Public) Rules, 2009.

Section 69A of the Act provides for penalty to intermediaries for non-compliance of the blocking order. However, no penalty is prescribed for individual users of such Apps”, the Ministry said in its reply.