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Two Arguments Against the Constitutionality of Section 66A
http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/two-arguments-against-the-constitutionality-of-section-66a
<b>Gautam Bhatia explores the constitutionality of Section 66A in light of recent events.</b>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><span>In the immediate aftermath of the elections, free speech issues have come to the fore again. In Goa, a Facebook user </span><a href="http://m.firstpost.com/politics/goa-facebook-user-faces-jail-term-for-anti-modi-comments-1538499.html">was summoned</a><span> for a post warning a second holocaust if Modi was elected to power. In Karnataka, a MBA student was </span><a href="http://www.hindustantimes.com/india-news/aap-activist-arrested-for-allegedly-forwarding-anti-modi-mms-in-karnataka/article1-1222788.aspx">likewise arrested</a><span> for circulating an MMS that showed Modi’s face morphed onto a corpse, with the slogan “</span><i>Abki baar antim sanskaar</i><span>”. These arrests have reopened the debate about the constitutional validity of Section 66A of the IT Act, which is the legal provision governing online speech in India. </span><a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/resources/section-66A-information-technology-act">Section 66A</a><span> criminalises, among other things, the sending of information that is “</span><i>grossly offensive or menacing in character</i><span>” or causes “</span><i>annoyance or inconvenience</i><span>”. The two instances cited above raise – not for the first time – the concern that when it comes to implementation, Section 66A is unworkable to the point of being unconstitutional.</span></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><span>Like all legal provisions, Section 66A must comply with the fundamental rights chapter of the Indian Constitution. Article 19(1)(a) guarantees the freedom of speech and expression, and Article 19(2) permits reasonable restrictions in the interests of – </span><i>inter alia</i><span> – “public order, decency or morality”. Presumably, the only way in which Section 66A can be justified is by showing that it falls within the category of “public order” or of “morality”. The precedent of the Supreme Court, however, has interpreted Article 19(2) in far narrower terms than the ones that Section 66A uses. The Court has </span><a href="http://indiankanoon.org/doc/1386353/">held</a><span> that “public order” may only be invoked if there is a direct and immediate relation between the offending speech and a public order disturbance – such as, for instance, a speaker making an incendiary speech to an excited mob, advocating imminent violence (the Court has colloquially stated the requirement to be a “</span><i>spark in a powder keg</i><span>”). Similarly, while the Court has never precisely defined what “morality” – for the purposes of Article 19(2) – means, the term has been </span><a href="http://www.indiankanoon.org/doc/1623275/">invoked</a><span> where (arguably) pornographic materials are concerned – and never simply because speech has “offended” or “menaced” someone. Indeed, the rhetoric of the Court has consistently rejected the proposition that the government can prohibit individuals from offending one another.</span></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><span>This raises two constitutional problems with Section 66A: the problems of </span><i>overbreadth </i><span>and </span><i>vagueness</i><span>. Both doctrines have been developed to their fullest in American free speech law, but the underlying principles are universal.</span></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><span>A statute is </span><i>overbroad </i><span>when it potentially includes within its prohibitions </span><i>both</i><span> speech that it is entitled to prohibit, and speech that it is not. In </span><a href="http://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/405/518/case.html"><i>Gooding v. Wilson</i></a><span>, a Georgia statute criminalized the use of “</span><i>opprobrious words or abusive language</i><span>”. In defending the statute, the State of Georgia argued that its Courts had read it narrowly, limiting its application to “fighting words” – i.e., words that by their very nature tended to incite an imminent breach of the peace, something that was indisputably within the power of the State to prohibit. The Supreme Court rejected the argument and invalidated the statute. It found that the words “opprobrious” and “abusive” had greater reach than “fighting words”. Thus, since the statute left “</span><i>wide open the standard of responsibility, so that it [was] easily susceptible to improper application</i><span>”, the Court struck it down.</span></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><span>A statute is </span><i>vague </i><span>when persons of “</span><i>ordinary intelligence… have no reasonable opportunity to know what is prohibited</i><span>.” In </span><a href="http://www.bc.edu/bc_org/avp/cas/comm/free_speech/grayned.html"><i>Grayned v. Rockford</i></a><span>, the American Supreme Court noted that </span><i>“</i><i>a vague law impermissibly delegates basic policy matters to policemen, judges, and juries for resolution on an ad hoc and subjective basis, with the attendant dangers of arbitrary and discriminatory application.” </i><span>There are, therefore, a number of problems with vague laws: one of the fundamental purposes of law is to allow citizens to plan their affairs with a degree of certainty. Vagueness in legislation prevents that. And equally importantly, vague laws leave a wide scope of implementing power with non-elected bodies, such as the police – leading to the fear of arbitrary application.</span></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><span>While overbreadth and vagueness are problems that affect legislation across the board, they assume a particular urgency when it comes to free speech. This is because, as the American Supreme Court has recognized on a number of occasions, speech regulating statutes must be scrutinized with specific care because of the </span><i>chilling effect</i><span>: when speech is penalized, people will – out of fear and caution – exercise self-censorship, and the political discourse will be impoverished. If we accept – as the Indian Courts have – that a primary reason for guaranteeing free expression rights is their indispensability to democracy, then the danger of self-censorship is one that we should be particularly solicitous of. Hence, when speech-regulating statutes do proscribe expression, they must be clear and narrowly drawn, in order to avoid the chilling effect. As the American Supreme Court euphemistically framed it, “</span><i>free speech needs breathing space to survive</i><span>.” Overbroad and vague speech-restricting statutes are particularly pernicious in denying it that breathing space.</span></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><span>There seems to be little doubt that Section 66A is both overbroad and vague. However ill-judged a holocaust comparison or a morphed corpse-image may be, neither of them are like sparks in a powder keg, which will lead to an immediate breach in public order – or “immoral” in the way of explicit pornography. We can therefore see, clearly, that the implementation of the law leaves almost unbounded scope to officials such as the police, provides room for unconstitutional interpretations, and is so vaguely framed that it is almost impossible to know, in advance, what actions fall within the rule, and which ones are not covered by it. If there is such a thing as over-breadth and vagueness </span><i>par excellence</i><span>, then Section 66A is surely it!</span></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><span>At various times in its history, the Supreme Court has acknowledged the problems of overbreadth, vagueness and the chilling effect, but never directly incorporated them into Indian law. As we have seen, each of these elements is connected to the other: over-broad and vague speech-regulating statutes are problematic because of the chilling effect. Since Section 66A is presently being challenged before the Supreme Court, there is a great opportunity for the Court both to get rid of this unconstitutional law, as well as strengthen the foundations of our free speech jurisprudence.</span></p>
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<p style="text-align: justify; "><span><i>Gautam Bhatia — @gautambhatia88 on Twitter — is a graduate of the National Law School of India University (2011), and presently an LLM student at the Yale Law School. He blogs about the Indian Constitution at <a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://indconlawphil.wordpress.com/">http://indconlawphil.wordpress.com</a>. Here at CIS, he blogs on issues of online freedom of speech and expression.</i></span></p>
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For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/two-arguments-against-the-constitutionality-of-section-66a'>http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/two-arguments-against-the-constitutionality-of-section-66a</a>
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No publisherGautam BhatiaFreedom of Speech and ExpressionConstitutional LawCensorshipSection 66A2014-06-04T03:42:17ZBlog EntryThe Ministry And The Trace: Subverting End-To-End Encryption
http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/the-ministry-and-the-trace-subverting-end-to-end-encryption
<b>A legal and technical analysis of the 'traceability' rule and its impact on messaging privacy.</b>
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<p>The paper was published in the <a class="external-link" href="http://nujslawreview.org/2021/07/09/the-ministry-and-the-trace-subverting-end-to-end-encryption/">NUJS Law Review Volume 14 Issue 2 (2021)</a>.</p>
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<h2>Abstract</h2>
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<p>End-to-end
encrypted messaging allows individuals to hold confidential
conversations free from the interference of states and private
corporations. To aid surveillance and prosecution of crimes, the Indian
Government has mandated online messaging providers to enable
identification of originators of messages that traverse their platforms.
This paper establishes how the different ways in which this
‘traceability’ mandate can be implemented (dropping end-to-end
encryption, hashing messages, and attaching originator information to
messages) come with serious costs to usability, security and privacy.
Through a legal and constitutional analysis, we contend that
traceability exceeds the scope of delegated legislation under the
Information Technology Act, and is at odds with the fundamental right to
privacy.</p>
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<p>Click here to read the <a class="external-link" href="http://nujslawreview.org/2021/07/09/the-ministry-and-the-trace-subverting-end-to-end-encryption/">full paper</a>.</p>
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For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/the-ministry-and-the-trace-subverting-end-to-end-encryption'>http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/the-ministry-and-the-trace-subverting-end-to-end-encryption</a>
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No publisherGurshabad Grover, Tanaya Rajwade and Divyank KatiraCryptographyIntermediary LiabilityConstitutional LawInternet GovernanceMessagingEncryption Policy2021-07-12T08:18:18ZBlog EntrySurveillance and the Indian Constitution - Part 2: Gobind and the Compelling State Interest Test
http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/surveillance-and-the-indian-consitution-part-2
<b>Gautam Bhatia analyses the first case in which the Supreme Court recognized a constitutional right to privacy, Gobind v. State of Madhya Pradesh, and argues that the holding in that case adopted the three-pronged American test of strict scrutiny, compelling State interest, and narrow tailoring in its approach to privacy violations.</b>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">After its judgment in Kharak Singh, the Court was not concerned with the privacy question for a while. The next case that dealt – peripherally – with the issue came eleven years later. In <i>R.M. Malkani v State of Maharashtra</i>, the Court held that attaching a recording device to a person’s telephone did not violate S. 25 of the Telegraph Act, because</p>
<blockquote class="italized" style="text-align: justify; ">"where a person talking on the telephone allows another person to record it or to hear it, it can-not be said that the other person who is allowed to do so is damaging, removing, tampering, touching machinery battery line or post for intercepting or acquainting himself with the contents of any message. There was no element of coercion or compulsion in attaching the tape recorder to the telephone."</blockquote>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Although this case was primarily about the admissibility of evidence, the Court also took time out to consider – and reject – a privacy-based Article 21 argument, holding that:</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">"Article 21 was invoked by submitting that the privacy of the appellant’s conversation was invaded. Article 21 contemplates procedure established by law with regard to deprivation of life or personal liberty. The telephonic conversation of an innocent citizen will be protected by Courts against wrongful or high handed interference by tapping the conversation. The protection is not for the guilty citizen against the efforts of the police to vindicate the law and prevent corruption of public servants. It must not be understood that the Courts will tolerate safeguards for the protection of the citizen to be imperiled by permitting the police to proceed by unlawful or irregular methods."<br /><br /> Apart from the fact that it joined Kharak Singh in refusing to expressly find a privacy right within the contours of Article 21, there is something else that unites Kharak Singh and R.M. Malkani: they hypothetical in Kharak Singh became a reality in Malkani – what saved the telephone tapping precisely because it was directed at "… a guilty person", with the Court specifically holding that the laws were not for targeting innocent people. Once again, then, the targeted and specific nature of interception became a crucial – and in this case, a decisive – factor. One year later, in another search and seizure case, Pooran Mal v Inspector, the Court cited M.P. Sharma and stuck to its guns, refusing to incorporate the Fourth Amendment into Indian Constitutional law.<br /><br />It is <i>Gobind v State of MP</i>, decided in 1975, that marks the watershed moment for Indian privacy law in the Constitution. Like Kharak Singh, Gobind also involved domiciliary visits to the house of a history-sheeter. Unlike Kharak Singh, however, in Gobind the Court found that the Regulations did have statutory backing – S. 46(2)(c) of the Police Act, which allowed State Government to make notifications giving effect to the provisions of the Act, one of which was the prevention of commission of offences. The surveillance provisions in the impugned regulations, according to the Court, were indeed for the purpose of preventing offences, since they were specifically aimed at repeat offenders. To that extent, then, the Court found that there existed a valid “law” for the purposes of Articles 19 and 21.<br /><br />By this time, of course, American constitutional law had moved forward significantly from eleven years ago, when Kharak Singh had been decided. The Court was able to invoke <i>Griswold v Connecticut</i> and <i>Roe v Wade</i>, both of which had found a "privacy" as an "interstitial" or "penumbral" right in the American Constitution – that is, not reducible to any one provision, but implicit in a number of separate provisions taken together. The Court ran together a number of American authorities, referred to Locke and Kant, to dignity, to liberty and to autonomy, and ended by holding, somewhat confusingly:<br /><br />“the right to privacy must encompass and protect the personal intimacies of the home, the family marriage, motherhood, procreation and child rearing. This catalogue approach to the question is obviously not as instructive as it does not give analytical picture of that distinctive characteristics of the right of privacy. Perhaps, the only suggestion that can be offered as unifying principle underlying the concept has been the assertion that a claimed right must be a fundamental right implicit in the concept of ordered liberty… there are two possible theories for protecting privacy of home. The first is that activities in the home harm others only to the extent that they cause offence resulting from the mere thought that individuals might he engaging in such activities and that such ‘harm’ is not Constitutionally protective by the state. The second is that individuals need a place of sanctuary where they can be free from societal control. The importance of such a sanctuary is that individuals can drop the mask, desist for a while from projecting on the world the image they want to be accepted as themselves, an image that may reflect the values of their peers rather than the realities of their natures… the right to privacy in any event will necessarily have to go through a process of case-by-case development."<br /><br />But if no clear principle emerges out of the Court’s elucidation of the right, it was fairly unambiguous in stressing the importance of the right itself. Interestingly, it grounded the right within the context of the freedom struggle. "Our founding fathers," it observed, "were thoroughly opposed to a Police Raj even as our history of the struggle for freedom has borne eloquent testimony to it." (Para 30) The parallels to the American Fourth Amendment are striking here: in his historical analysis Akhil Amar tells us that the Fourth Amendment was meant precisely to avoid the various abuses of unreasonable searches and seizures that were common in England at the time.<br /><br />The parallels with the United States become even more pronounced, however, when the Court examined the grounds for limiting the right to privacy. "Assuming that the fundamental rights explicitly guaranteed to a citizen have penumbral zones and that the right to privacy is itself a fundamental right, that fundamental right must be subject to restriction on the basis of compelling public interest." "Compelling public interest" is an interesting phrase, for two reasons. First, “public interest” is a ground for fundamental rights restrictions under Article 19 (see, e.g., Article 19(6)), but the text of the Article 19 restrictions do not use – and the Court, in interpreting them, has not held – that the public interest must be “compelling”. This suggests a stricter standard of review for an Article 21 privacy right violation than Article 19 violations. This is buttressed by the fact that in the same paragraph, the Court ended by observing: “even if it be assumed that Article 19(5) [restrictions upon the freedom of movement] does not apply in terms, as the right to privacy of movement cannot be absolute, a law imposing reasonable restriction upon it for compelling interest of State must be upheld as valid.” The Court echoes the language of 19(5), and adds the word “compelling”. This surely cannot be an oversight.<br /><br />More importantly – the compelling State interest is an American test, used often in equal protection cases and cases of discrimination, where “suspect classes” (such as race) are at issue. Because of the importance of the right at issue, the compelling state interest test goes hand-in-hand with another test: narrow tailoring. Narrow tailoring places a burden upon the State to demonstrate that its restriction is tailored in a manner that infringes the right as narrowest manner that is possible to achieve its goals. The statement of the rule may be found in the American Supreme Court case of Grutter v Bollinger:<br /><br />"Even in the limited circumstance when drawing racial distinctions is permissible to further a compelling state interest, government is still constrained under equal protection clause in how it may pursue that end: the means chosen to accomplish the government’s asserted purpose must be specifically and narrowly framed to accomplish that purpose."<br /><br /> To take an extremely trivial example that will illustrate the point: the State wants to ban hate speech against Dalits. It passes legislation that bans “all speech that disrespects Dalits.” This is not narrowly tailored, because while all hate speech against Dalits necessarily disrespects them, all speech that disrespects Dalits is not necessarily hate speech. It was possible for the government to pass legislation banning only hate speech against Dalits, one that would have infringed upon free speech more narrowly than the “disrespect law”, and still achieved its goals. The law is not narrowly tailored.<br /><br />Crucially, then, the Court in Gobind seemed to implicitly accept the narrow-tailoring flip side of the compelling state interest coin. On the constitutionality of the Police Regulations itself, it upheld their constitutionality by reading them narrowly. Here is what the Court said:<br /><br />“Regulation 855, in our view, empowers surveillance only of persons against whom reasonable materials exist to induce the opinion that they show a determination, to lead a life of crime – crime in this context being confined to such as involve public peace or security only and if they are dangerous security risks. Mere convictions in criminal cases where nothing gravely imperiling safety of society cannot be regarded as warranting surveillance under this Regulation. Similarly, domiciliary visits and picketing by the police should be reduced to the clearest cases of danger to community security and not routine follow-up at the end of a conviction or release from prison or at the whim of a police officer.”<br /><br /> But Regulation 855 did not refer to the gravity of the crime at all. Thus, the Court was able to uphold its constitutionality only by narrowing its scope in a manner that the State’s objective of securing public safety was met in a way that minimally infringed the right to privacy.<br /><br />Therefore, whether the Gobind bench was aware of it or not, its holding incorporates into Indian constitutional law and the right to privacy, not just the compelling State interest test, but narrow tailoring as well. The implications for the CMS are obvious. Because with narrow tailoring, the State must demonstrate that bulk surveillance of all individuals, whether guilty or innocent, suspected of crimes or not suspected of crimes (whether reasonably or otherwise), possessing a past criminal record or not, speaking to each other of breaking up the government or breaking up a relationship – every bit of data must be collected to achieve the goal of maintaining public security, and that nothing narrower will suffice. Can the State demonstrate this? I do not think it can, but at the very least, it should be made to do so in open Court.</p>
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For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/surveillance-and-the-indian-consitution-part-2'>http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/surveillance-and-the-indian-consitution-part-2</a>
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No publisherpraneshSurveillanceConstitutional LawInternet GovernancePrivacy2014-01-27T18:03:38ZBlog EntrySurveillance and the Indian Constitution - Part 1: Foundations
http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/surveillance-and-the-indian-consitution-part-1
<b>In this insightful seven-part series, Gautam Bhatia looks at surveillance and the right to privacy in India from a constitutional perspective, tracing its genealogy through Supreme Court case law and compares it with the law in the USA.</b>
<p>Note: This was originally posted on the <a href="http://indconlawphil.wordpress.com/2013/12/15/surveillance-and-privacy-in-india-i-foundations/">Indian Constitutional Law and Philosophy blog</a>.</p>
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<p style="text-align: justify; ">On previous occasions, we <a href="http://indconlawphil.wordpress.com/2013/11/23/surveillance-privacy-association-and-the-constitution-i-oral-arguments-in-aclu-v-clapper/">have</a> <a href="http://indconlawphil.wordpress.com/2013/11/24/oral-arguments-in-aclu-v-clapper-ii-how-surveillance-affects-free-speech-and-the-freedom-of-association/">discussed</a> the ongoing litigation in <i>ACLU v. Clapper </i>in the United States, a challenge to the constitutionality of the National Security Agency’s (NSA) bulk surveillance program. Recall that a short while after the initial Edward Snowden disclosures, The Hindu revealed the extent of domestic surveillance in India, under the aegis of the Central Monitoring System (CMS). The CMS (and what it does) is excellently summarized <a href="http://india.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/07/10/how-surveillance-works-in-india/?_r=0">here</a>. To put thing starkly and briefly:</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><i>“With the C.M.S., the government will get <a href="http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/indias-surveillance-project-may-be-as-lethal-as-prism/article4834619.ece">centralized access to all communications metadata and content</a> traversing through all telecom networks in India. This means that the government can listen to all your calls, track a mobile phone and its user’s location, read all your text messages, personal e-mails and chat conversations. It can also see all your Google searches, Web site visits, usernames and passwords if your communications aren’t encrypted.”</i></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The CMS is not sanctioned by parliamentary legislation. It also raises serious privacy concerns. In order to understand the constitutional implications, therefore, we need to investigate Indian privacy jurisprudence. In a series of posts, we plan to discuss that.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Privacy is not mentioned in the Constitution. It plays no part in the Constituent Assembly Debates. The place of the right – if it exists – must therefore be located within the structure of the Constitution, as fleshed out by judicial decisions. The first case to address the issue was <i><a href="http://indiankanoon.org/doc/1306519/">M. P. Sharma v. Satish Chandra</a>, </i>in 1954. In that case, the Court upheld search and seizure in the following terms:</p>
<blockquote style="text-align: justify; "><i>"A power of search and seizure is in any system of jurisprudence an overriding power of the State for the protection of social security and that power is <span>necessarily regulated</span> by law. When the Constitution makers have thought fit not to subject such regulation to Constitutional limitations by recognition of <span>a </span></i><i> </i><i><span>fundamental right to privacy, analogous to the American Fourth Amendment</span></i><i>, we have no justification to import it, into a totally different fundamental right. by some process of strained construction."</i></blockquote>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><i> </i>The right in question was 19(1)(f) – the right to property. Notice here that the Court did not reject a right to privacy altogether – it only rejected it in the context of searches and seizures for documents, the specific prohibition of the American <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourth_Amendment_to_the_United_States_Constitution">Fourth Amendment</a> (that has no analogue in India). This specific position, however, would not last too long, and was undermined by the very next case to consider this question, <i>Kharak Singh</i>.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">In <a href="http://indiankanoon.org/doc/619152/"><i>Kharak Singh v. State of UP</i></a>, the UP Police Regulations conferred surveillance power upon certain “history sheeters” – that is, those charged (though not necessarily convicted) of a crime. These surveillance powers included secret picketing of the suspect’s house, domiciliary visits at night, enquiries into his habits and associations, and reporting and verifying his movements. These were challenged on Article 19(1)(d) (freedom of movement) and Article 21 (personal liberty) grounds. It is the second ground that particularly concerns us.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">As a preliminary matter, we may observe that the Regulations in question were administrative – that is, they did not constitute a “law”, passed by the legislature. This <i>automatically </i>ruled out a 19(2) – 19(6) defence, and a 21 “procedure established by law” defence – which were only applicable when the State made a <i>law</i>. The reason for this is obvious: fundamental rights are extremely important. If one is to limit them, then that judgment must be made by a competent <i>legislature</i>, acting through the proper, deliberative channels of lawmaking – and not by mere administrative or executive action. Consequently – and this is quite apart from the question of administrative/executive <i>competence </i> - if the Police Regulations were found to violate Article 19 or Article 21, that made them <i>ipso facto </i>void, without the exceptions kicking in. (Paragraph 5)</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">It is also important to note one other thing: as a defence, it was <i>expressly </i>argued by the State that the police action was reasonable and in the interests of maintaining public order precisely because it was <i>“directed only against those who were on proper grounds suspected to be of proved anti-social habits and tendencies and on whom it was necessary to impose some restraints for the protection of society.” </i>The Court agreed, observing that this would have <i>“an overwhelming and even decisive weight in establishing that the classification was rational and that the restrictions were reasonable and designed to preserve public order by suitable preventive action” </i>– <span>if</span> there had been a law in the first place, which there wasn’t. Thus, this issue itself was hypothetical, but what is crucial to note is that the State argued – and the Court endorsed – the basic idea that what makes surveillance reasonable under Article 19 is the very fact that it is <i>targeted – </i>targeted at individuals who are specifically suspected of being a threat to society because of a history of criminality.</p>
<p>Let us now move to the merits. The Court upheld secret picketing on the ground that it could not affect the petitioner’s freedom of movement since it was, well <i>secret</i> – and what you don’t know, apparently, cannot hurt you. What the Court found fault with was the intrusion into the petitioner’s dwelling, and knocking at his door late at night to wake him up. The finding required the Court to interpret the meaning of the term “<i>personal liberty</i>” in Article 21. By contrasting the very specific rights listed in Article 21, the Court held that:</p>
<p>“<i>Is then the word “personal liberty” to be construed as excluding from its purview an invasion on the part of the police of the sanctity of a man’s home <span>and an intrusion into his personal security</span> and <span>his right to sleep which is the normal comfort and a dire necessity for human existence even as an animal</span>? It might not be inappropriate to refer here to the words of the preamble to the Constitution that it is designed to “<span>assure the dignity of the individual</span>” and therefore of those cherished human value as the means of ensuring his full development and evolution. We are referring to these objectives of the framers merely to draw attention to the concepts underlying the constitution which would point to such vital words as “personal liberty” having to be construed in a reasonable manner and to be attributed that these which would promote and achieve those objectives and by no means to stretch the meaning of the phrase to square with any preconceived notions or doctrinaire constitutional theories.”</i> (Paragraph 16)</p>
<p>A few important observations need to be made about this paragraph. The first is that it immediately follows the Court’s examination of the American <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fifth_Amendment_to_the_United_States_Constitution">Fifth</a> and <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourteenth_Amendment_to_the_United_States_Constitution">Fourteenth Amendments</a>, with their guarantees of “life, liberty and property…” and is, in turn, followed by the Court’s examination of the American <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourth_Amendment_to_the_United_States_Constitution"><i>Fourth</i> Amendment</a>, which guarantees the protection of a person’s houses, papers, effects etc from unreasonable searches and seizures. The Court’s engagement with the Fourth Amendment is ambiguous. It admits that “<i>our Constitution contains no like guarantee…</i>”, but holds that <i>nonetheless </i>“<i>these extracts </i>[from the 1949 case, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wolf_v._Colorado"><i>Wolf v Colorado</i></a>]<i> would show that an unauthorised intrusion into a person’s home and the disturbance caused to him thereby, is as it were the violation of a common law right of a man – an ultimate essential of ordered liberty”</i>, thus tying its own holding in some way to the American Fourth Amendment jurisprudence. But here’s the crucial thing: <i>at this point</i>, American Fourth Amendment jurisprudence was <i>propertarian based </i>– that is, the Fourth Amendment was understood to codify – with added protection – the common law of trespass, whereby a man’s property was held sacrosanct, and not open to be trespassed against. Four years later, in 1967, in <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katz_v._United_States"><i>Katz</i></a>, the Supreme Court would shift its own jurisprudence, to holding that the Fourth Amendment protected zones where persons had a “<i>reasonable</i><i> expectation of privacy</i>”, as opposed to simply protecting listed items of property (homes, papers, effects etc). <i>Kharak Singh</i> was handed down before <i>Katz. </i>Yet the quoted paragraph expressly shows that the Court anticipated <i>Katz</i>, and in expressly grounding the Article 21 personal liberty right within the meaning of <i>dignity</i>, utterly rejected the propertarian-tresspass foundations that it might have had. To use a phrase invoked by later Courts – in this proto-privacy case, the Court already set the tone by holding it to attach to <i>persons</i>, not <i>places.</i></p>
<p>While effectively finding a right to privacy in the Constitution, the Court expressly declined to frame it that way. In examining police action which involved tracking a person’s location, association and movements, the Court upheld it, holding that <i>“the right of privacy is not a guaranteed right under our Constitution <span>and therefore</span> the attempt to ascertain the movements of an individual which <span>is merely a manner in which privacy</span> is invaded is not an infringement of a fundamental right guaranteed by Part III.”</i></p>
<p><b> The “therefore” is crucial. Although not expressly, the Court virtually holds, in terms, that tracking location, association and movements <span>does violate privacy</span>, and only finds that constitutional because <i>there is no guaranteed right to privacy within the Constitution. </i>Yet.</b></p>
<p>In his partly concurring and partly dissenting opinion, Subba Rao J. went one further, by holding that the idea of privacy was, in fact, contained within the meaning of Article 21: <i>“it is true our Constitution does not expressly declare a right to privacy as a fundamental right, but the said right is an essential ingredient of personal liberty.” </i> Privacy he defined as the right to “<i>be free from restrictions or encroachments on his person, whether those restrictions or encroachments are directly imposed or indirectly brought about by calculated measures.” </i>On this ground, he held all the surveillance measures unconstitutional.</p>
<p>Justice Subba Rao’s opinion also explored a proto-version of the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chilling_effect">chilling effect</a>. Placing specific attention upon the word “<i>freely</i>” contained within 19(1)(d)’s guarantee of free movment, Justice Subba Rao went specifically against the majority, and observed:</p>
<p><i>“The freedom of movement in clause (d) therefore must be a movement in a free country, i.e., in a country where he can do whatever he likes, speak to whomsoever he wants, meet people of his own choice without any apprehension, subject of course to the law of social control. The petitioner under the shadow of surveillance is certainly deprived of this freedom. <span>He can move physically, but he cannot do so freely, for all his activities are watched and noted. The shroud of surveillance cast upon him perforce engender inhibitions in him and he cannot act freely as he would like to do. </span>We would, therefore, hold that the entire Regulation 236 offends also Art. </i><i>19(1)(d) of the Constitution.”</i></p>
<p><i> </i>This early case, therefore, has all the aspects that plague the CMS today. What to do with administrative action that does not have the sanction of law? What role does targeting play in reasonableness – assuming there is a law? What is the philosophical basis for the implicit right to privacy within the meaning of Article 21’s guarantee of personal liberty? And is the chilling effect a valid constitutional concern?</p>
<p>We shall continue with the development of the jurisprudence in the next post.</p>
<hr />
<p>You can follow Gautam Bhatia <a href="https://twitter.com/gautambhatia88">on Twitter</a></p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/surveillance-and-the-indian-consitution-part-1'>http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/surveillance-and-the-indian-consitution-part-1</a>
</p>
No publisherpraneshSurveillanceConstitutional LawInternet GovernancePrivacy2014-01-23T15:12:30ZBlog EntryOverview of the Constitutional Challenges to the IT Act
http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/overview-constitutional-challenges-on-itact
<b>There are currently ten cases before the Supreme Court challenging various provisions of the Information Technology Act, the rules made under that, and other laws, that are being heard jointly. Advocate Gopal Sankaranarayanan who's arguing Anoop M.K. v. Union of India has put together this chart that helps you track what's being challenged in each case.</b>
<br />
<br />
<br />
<table class="tg" style="undefined;table-layout: fixed; border=">
<tr>
<th class="tg-s6z2">PENDING MATTERS</th>
<th class="tg-s6z2">CASE NUMBER</th>
<th class="tg-0ord">PROVISIONS CHALLENGED</th>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="tg-4eph">Shreya Singhal v. Union of India</td>
<td class="tg-spn1">W.P.(CRL.) NO. 167/2012</td>
<td class="tg-zapm">66A</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="tg-031e">Common Cause & Anr. v. Union of India</td>
<td class="tg-s6z2">W.P.(C) NO. 21/2013</td>
<td class="tg-0ord">66A, 69A & 80</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="tg-4eph">Rajeev Chandrasekhar v. Union of India & Anr.</td>
<td class="tg-spn1">W.P.(C) NO. 23/2013</td>
<td class="tg-zapm">66A & Rules 3(2), 3(3), 3(4) & 3(7) of the Intermediaries Rules 2011</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="tg-031e">Dilip Kumar Tulsidas Shah v. Union of India & Anr.</td>
<td class="tg-s6z2">W.P.(C) NO. 97/2013</td>
<td class="tg-0ord">66A</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="tg-4eph">Peoples Union for Civil Liberties v. Union of India & Ors.</td>
<td class="tg-spn1">W.P.(CRL.) NO. 199/2013</td>
<td class="tg-zapm">66A, 69A, Intermediaries Rules 2011 (s.79(2) Rules) & Blocking of Access of Information by Public Rules 2009 (s.69A Rules)</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="tg-031e">Mouthshut.Com (India) Pvt. Ltd. & Anr. v. Union of India & Ors.</td>
<td class="tg-s6z2">W.P.(C) NO. 217/2013</td>
<td class="tg-0ord">66A & Intermediaries Rules 2011</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="tg-4eph">Taslima Nasrin v. State of U.P & Ors.</td>
<td class="tg-spn1">W.P.(CRL.) NO. 222/2013</td>
<td class="tg-zapm">66A</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="tg-031e">Manoj Oswal v. Union of India & Anr.</td>
<td class="tg-s6z2">W.P.(CRL.) NO. 225/2013</td>
<td class="tg-0ord">66A & 499/500 Indian Penal Code</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="tg-4eph">Internet and Mobile Ass'n of India & Anr. v. Union of India & Anr.</td>
<td class="tg-spn1">W.P.(C) NO. 758/2014</td>
<td class="tg-zapm">79(3) & Intermediaries Rules 2011</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="tg-031e">Anoop M.K. v. Union of India & Ors.</td>
<td class="tg-s6z2">W.P.(CRL.) NO. 196/2014</td>
<td class="tg-0ord">66A, 69A, 80 & S.118(d) of the Kerala Police Act, 2011</td>
</tr>
</table>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/overview-constitutional-challenges-on-itact'>http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/overview-constitutional-challenges-on-itact</a>
</p>
No publisherpraneshIT ActCourt CaseFreedom of Speech and ExpressionIntermediary LiabilityConstitutional LawCensorshipSection 66AArticle 19(1)(a)Blocking2014-12-19T09:01:50ZBlog EntryNotes From a Foreign Field: The European Court of Human Rights on Russia’s Website Blocking
http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/notes-from-a-foreign-field-the-european-court-of-human-rights-on-russia2019s-website-blocking
<b>This blogpost summarises the human rights principles applied by the Court to website blocking, and discusses how they can be instructive to petitions in the Delhi High Court that challenge arbitrary censorship in India.</b>
<p class="has-text-align-justify"> </p>
<p class="has-text-align-justify">This blogpost was authored by Gurshabad Grover and Anna Liz Thomas. It was first published at the <a class="external-link" href="https://indconlawphil.wordpress.com/2021/02/05/notes-from-a-foreign-fieldthe-european-court-of-human-rights-on-russias-website-blocking-guest-post/">Indian Constitutional Law and Philosophy Blog</a> on February 5, 2021, and has been reproduced here with permission.</p>
<hr />
<p class="has-text-align-justify"> </p>
<p class="has-text-align-justify">From PUBG to TikTok, online services
are regularly blocked in India under an opaque censorship regime flowing
from section 69A of the Information Technology (IT) Act. Russia happens
to have a very similar online content blocking regime, parts and
processes of which were recently challenged in the European Court of
Human Rights (‘the Court’). This blogpost summarises the human rights
principles applied by the Court to website blocking, and discusses how
they can be instructive to petitions in the Delhi High Court that
challenge arbitrary censorship in India.</p>
<h3><strong>Challenges to Russia’s Website Blocking Practices</strong></h3>
<p class="has-text-align-justify">On 23 June 2020, the Court delivered <a href="https://strasbourgobservers.com/2020/08/26/the-strasbourg-court-establishes-standards-on-blocking-access-to-websites/">four judgements</a>
on the implementation of Russia’s Information Act, under which content
on the internet can be deemed illegal and taken down or blocked. Under
some of these provisions, a court order is not required, and the
government can send a blocking request directly to Roskomnadzor,
Russia’s telecom service regulator. Roskomnadzor, in turn, requests
internet service providers (ISPs) to block access to the webpage or
websites. Roskomnadzor also notifies the website owner within 24 hours.
Under the law, once the website owner notifies the Roskomnadzor that the
illegal content has been removed from the website, the Roskomnadzor
verifies the same and informs ISPs that access to the website may be
restored for users.</p>
<p class="has-text-align-justify">In the case of <a href="https://hudoc.echr.coe.int/eng#%7B%22itemid%22:%5B%22001-203177%22%5D%7D"><em>Vladimir Kharitonov</em></a><em>, </em>the
complainant’s website had been blocked as a result of a blocking order
against another website, which shared the same IP address as that of the
complainant. In <a href="https://hudoc.echr.coe.int/eng#%7B%22itemid%22:%5B%22001-203180%22%5D%7D"><em>Engels</em></a><em>, </em>the
applicant’s website had been ordered by a court to be blocked for
having provided information about online censorship circumvention tools,
despite the fact that such information was not unlawful under any
Russian law. <em><a href="https://hudoc.echr.coe.int/eng#%7B%22itemid%22:%5B%22001-203178%22%5D%7D">OOO Flavius</a></em>
concerned three online media outlets that had their entire websites
blocked on the grounds that some of their webpages may have featured
unlawful content. Similarly, in the case of <a href="https://hudoc.echr.coe.int/eng#%7B%22itemid%22:%5B%22001-203181%22%5D%7D"><em>Bulgakov</em></a><em>, </em>the
implementation of a blocking order targeting extremist content (one
particular pamphlet) had the effect of blocking access to the
applicant’s entire website. In both the cases of <em>Engels </em>and <em>Bulgakov, </em>where court proceedings had taken place, the proceedings had been concluded <em>inter se </em>the
Prosecutor General and server providers, without the involvement of the
website owner. In all four cases, appeals to higher Russian courts had
been summarily dismissed. Even in those cases where website owners had
taken down the offending content, their websites had not been restored.</p>
<p class="has-text-align-justify">The Court assessed the law and its
application on the basis of a three-part test on whether the censorship
is (a) prescribed by law (including foreseeability and accessibility
aspects of the law), (b) necessary (and proportionate) in a democratic
society, and (c) pursuing a legitimate aim.</p>
<p class="has-text-align-justify">Based on the application of these
tests, the Court ruled against the Russian authorities in all four
cases. The Court also held that the wholesale blocking of entire
websites was an extreme measure tantamount to banning a newspaper or a
television station, which has the collateral effect of interfering with
lawful content. According to the Court, blocking entire websites can
thus amount to prior restraint, which is only justified in exceptional
circumstances.</p>
<p class="has-text-align-justify">The Court further held that procedural
safeguards were required under domestic law in the context of online
content blocking, such as the government authorities: (a) conducting an
impact assessment prior to the implementation of blocking measures; (b)
providing advance notice to website owners, and their involvement in
blocking proceedings; (c) providing interested parties with the
opportunity to remove illegal content or apply for judicial review; and
(d) requiring public authorities to justify the necessity and
proportionality of blocking, provide reasons as to why less intrusive
means could not be employed and communicate the blocking request to the
owner of the targeted website.</p>
<p class="has-text-align-justify">The Court also referenced an earlier judgment it had issued in the case of <em>Ahmet Yildirim vs. Turkey, </em> acknowledging
that content creators are not the only ones affected; website blocking
interferes with the public’s right to receive information.</p>
<p class="has-text-align-justify">The Court also held that the
participation of the ISP as a designated defendant was not enough in the
case of court proceedings concerning blocking requests, because the ISP
has no vested interest in the proceedings. Therefore, in the absence of
a targeted website’s owner, blocking proceedings in court would lose
their adversarial nature, and would not provide a forum for interested
parties to be heard.</p>
<h3><strong>Implications for India</strong></h3>
<p class="has-text-align-justify">The online censorship regime in India
is similar to Russian terms of legal procedure, but perhaps worse when
it comes to the architecture of the law’s implementation. Note that for
this discussion, we will restrict ourselves to government-directed
blocking and not consider court orders for content takedown (the latter
may also include intellectual property infringement and defamatory
content).</p>
<p class="has-text-align-justify"><a href="https://indiankanoon.org/doc/10190353/">Section 69A</a>
of the Information Technology (IT) Act permits the Central Government
to order intermediaries, including ISPs, to block online content on
several grounds when it thinks it is “necessary or expedient” to do so.
Amongst others, these grounds include national security, public order
and prevention of cognisable offences.</p>
<p class="has-text-align-justify">In 2009, the Information Technology (Procedure and Safeguards for Blocking for Access of Information by Public) Rules, 2009 (‘<a href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/resources/information-technology-procedure-and-safeguards-for-blocking-for-access-of-information-by-public-rules-2009">blocking rules</a>’)
were issued under the Act. They lay out an entirely executive-driven
process: a committee (consisting entirely of secretaries from various
Ministries) examines blocking requests from various government
departments, and finally orders intermediaries to block such content.</p>
<p class="has-text-align-justify">As per Rule 8, the chairperson of this committee is required to “make all reasonable efforts identify the person <strong>or</strong>
intermediary who has hosted the information” (emphasis ours) and send
them a notice and give them an opportunity for a hearing. A plain
reading suggests that the content creator can then not be involved in
the blocking proceedings. Even this safeguard can be circumvented in
“emergency” situations as described in Rule 9, under which blocking
orders can be issued immediately. The rules ask for such orders to be
examined by the committee in the next two days, where they can decide to
continue or rescind the block.</p>
<p class="has-text-align-justify">The rules also task a separate committee, <a href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/resources/rule-419-a-indian-telegraph-rules-1951">appointed</a>
under the Telegraph Act, to meet every two months to review all
blocking orders. Pertinently, only ministerial secretaries comprise that
committee as well.</p>
<p class="has-text-align-justify">These are the limited safeguards
prescribed in the rules. Public accountability in the law is further
severely limited by a requirement of strict confidentiality (Rule 16) of
blocking orders. With no judicial, parliamentary or public oversight,
it is easy to see how online censorship in India operates in complete
secrecy, making it <a href="https://scroll.in/article/953146/how-india-is-using-its-information-technology-act-to-arbitrarily-take-down-online-content">susceptible</a> to wide abuse.</p>
<p class="has-text-align-justify">When the constitutionality of provision and the blocking rules was challenged in <a href="https://indiankanoon.org/doc/110813550/"><em>Shreya Singhal v. Union of India</em></a>,
the Supreme Court was satisfied with these minimal safeguards. However,
it saved the rules only because of two reasons. First, it noted that an
opportunity of a hearing is given “to the originator <strong>and</strong>
intermediary” (emphasis ours: notice how this is different from the
‘or’ in the blocking rules). It also specifically noted that the law
required reasoned orders that could be challenged through writ
petitions.</p>
<p class="has-text-align-justify">On this blog, Gautam Bhatia has earlier <a href="https://indconlawphil.wordpress.com/2015/03/25/the-supreme-courts-it-act-judgment-and-secret-blocking/">argued</a>
that the judgment then should be read as obligating the government to
mandatorily notify the content creator before issuing blocking orders.
Unfortunately, the reality of the implementation of the law has <a href="https://scroll.in/article/953146/how-india-is-using-its-information-technology-act-to-arbitrarily-take-down-online-content">not lived up</a> to this optimism. While intermediaries (ISPs when it comes to website blocking) <em>may</em>
be getting a chance to respond, content creators are also almost never
given a hearing. As we saw in the European Court’s judgment, ISPs do not
have any incentive to challenge the government’s directions.</p>
<p class="has-text-align-justify">Additionally, although the law states that “reasons [for blocking content are] to be recorded in writing”, <a href="https://internetfreedom.in/whistleblower-provides-website-blocking-orders-on-4000-websites/">leaked blocking orders</a>
suggest that even ISPs are not given this information. Apart from the
opacity around the rationale for blocking, RTI requests to uncover even
the <em>list</em> of blocked websites have been <a href="https://www.hindustantimes.com/analysis/to-preserve-freedoms-online-amend-the-it-act/story-aC0jXUId4gpydJyuoBcJdI.html">repeatedly</a> rejected (for comparison, Roskomnadzor at least maintains a <a href="https://blocklist.rkn.gov.ru/">public registry</a> of websites blocked in Russia). This lack of transparency and fair proceedings also means that <em>entire </em>websites
may be getting blocked when there are only specific web pages on that
website that serve content related to unlawful acts.</p>
<p class="has-text-align-justify">When it comes to the technical methods
of blocking, the rules are silent, leaving this decision to the ISPs.
While a recent study by the Centre for Internet and Society showed that
popular ISPs are <a href="https://arxiv.org/pdf/1912.08590.pdf">using methods</a> that target specific websites, there are some recent reports that <a href="https://theprint.in/judiciary/us-firm-one-signal-moves-delhi-hc-says-ip-address-blocked-in-india-without-intimation/587852/">suggest</a>
ISPs may be blocking IP addresses too. The latter can have the effect
of blocking access to other websites that are hosted on the same
address.</p>
<p class="has-text-align-justify">There are two challenges to the rules
in the Delhi High Court, serving as opportunities for reform of website
blocking and content takedown in India. The first was filed in December
2019 by <a href="https://internetfreedom.in/delhi-hc-issues-notice-to-the-government-for-blocking-satirical-dowry-calculator-website/">Tanul Thakur</a>,
whose website DowryCalculator.com (a satirical take on the practice of
dowry) was blocked without any notice or hearing. Tanul Thakur was not
reached out to by the committee responsible for passing blocking orders
despite the fact that Thakur has publicly claimed its ownership multiple
times, and has been interviewed by the media about the website. When
Thakur <a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B2NvpMoZE5HGbGVCOG5TNVF6RDRGXzk5T3VNMlhTQ0E3QUlz/view">filed</a>
a RTI asking why DowryCalculator.com was blocked, the Ministry of
Electronics cited the confidentiality rule to refuse sharing such
information!</p>
<p class="has-text-align-justify">This month, an American company providing mobile notifications services, One Signal Inc., has <a href="https://theprint.in/judiciary/us-firm-one-signal-moves-delhi-hc-says-ip-address-blocked-in-india-without-intimation/587852/">alleged</a>
that ISPs are blocking its IP address, and petitioned the court to set
aside any government order to that effect because they did not receive a
hearing. Interestingly, the IP address belongs to a popular hosting
service provider, which serves multiple websites. Considering this fact
and the lack of transparency in blocking orders, one may question
whether One Signal was the intended target at all! The European Court’s
judgment in <em>Vladimir Kharitonov</em> is quite relevant here: ISPs
should not be blocking IP addresses that are shared amongst multiple
websites, because such a measure can cause collateral damage, and make
other legitimate expression inaccessible.</p>
<p class="has-text-align-justify">Given the broad similarities between
the Indian and Russian website blocking regimes, the four judgements by
the European Court of Human Rights will be instructive to the Delhi High
Court. Note that section 69A is used for content takedown in general,
i.e. censoring posts on Twitter, not just blocking websites): the right
to hearing must extend to all such content creators. The principles
applied by the European Court can thus provide for a more rights
respecting foundation for content blocking in India for the judiciary to
uphold, or for the legislature to amend.</p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/notes-from-a-foreign-field-the-european-court-of-human-rights-on-russia2019s-website-blocking'>http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/notes-from-a-foreign-field-the-european-court-of-human-rights-on-russia2019s-website-blocking</a>
</p>
No publishergurshabadContent takedown69AConstitutional Law2021-02-13T08:42:18ZBlog EntryComments on the Cinematograph (Amendment) Bill, 2021
http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/comments-on-the-cinematograph-amendment-bill-2021
<b>In this submission, we examine the constitutionality and legality of the Cinematograph (Amendment) Bill, 2021, which was released by the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting. </b>
<p dir="ltr"> </p>
<p dir="ltr">This submission presents comments by CIS on the Cinematograph (Amendement) Bill, 2021 (“the Bill”) which were released on 18 June 2021 for public comments. These comments examine whether the proposed amendments are compatible with established constitutional principles, precedents, previous policy positions and existing law. While we appreciate the opportunity to submit comments, we note that the time allotted for doing so was less than a month (the deadline for submission was 2 July 2021). Given the immense public import in the proposed changes, and the number of stakeholders involved, we highlight that the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting (MIB) should have provided more time in the final submission of comments. </p>
<p> </p>
<p dir="ltr">Read our full submission <a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/cinematograph-act-amendments-bill">here</a>.</p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/comments-on-the-cinematograph-amendment-bill-2021'>http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/comments-on-the-cinematograph-amendment-bill-2021</a>
</p>
No publisherTanvi Apte, Anubha Sinha and Torsha SarkarBroadcastingConstitutional LawCopyrightCensorship2021-07-05T05:59:52ZBlog Entry