Several law enforcement agencies are circumventing the IT Act, the Indian Penal Code and ultimately the Constitution, by not following proper procedure for removal of online content

Internet censorship in the age of free information is still a debatable issue. However, several times, it becomes necessary for the government to block or remove certain content from the Internet in the larger interest of society. In India, the Department of Information Technology (DIT) is the only designated authority that can order content removal or website blocking. However, many times, several law enforcement agencies are found to be circumventing the DIT by not following proper procedure for removal of online content.

In addition, the information procured by the Centre for Internet and Society (CIS) under the Right to Information (RTI) Act from the DIT and the latest Transparency report issued by Google show a wide gap. According to the reply from DIT, so far, six government officials and one politician have made requests for disabling access to certain online content under Section 69(A) of the IT Act. However, the report from Google says that it received 68 written requests from Indian law enforcement agencies for removal of 358 items from its various sites.

The statistics provided by the government show only eight separate requests made to the DIT, which under the IT Act is the only authority that can order blocking or removal of online content. These requests actually total up to 68—including 64 websites (at domain level), 1 sub-domain and 3 specific Web pages.

There are various reasons for blocking the online content, primary being adult content (61 domains), one domain and a sub-domain for specific communal issues and two specific pages, one a video speech of Shiv Sena chief Balasaheb Thackeray on YouTube and one page of Sukhbir Singh Badal on Wikipedia.

Section 69 (A) of the IT Act empowers the Union Government to “direct any agency of the Government or intermediary to block for access by the public or cause to be blocked for access by the public any information generated, transmitted, received, stored or hosted in any computer resource” through a designated officer.

However, the ground reality is very different when it comes to following the procedures of the IT Act. While there are few who approach the Designated Officer for blocking online content, as per the Google report, there are a number of people, agencies and institutions that are sending requests directly to domains or registrars for removing content. While blocking of online content is regulated by the IT Act, forcible removal of content is not. However, this is what is happening, most of the times. Surprisingly, companies like Google oblige such requests even when they are not under any legal obligation to do so.

According to CIS, the DIT did not provide answers to two specific issues, whether any block ordered by the Department has even been revoked and the basis on which the Department decides the intermediary (Web host, internet service providers (ISPs) for sending content blocking orders. In addition, CIS said the DIT in its reply to the RTI application only provided minutes of one meeting of the committee (Committee for Examination of Requests, constituted under Rule 8(4) of the Blocking Rules) that decides whether to carry out a block, when it had requested for minutes of all the meetings it had held. The Committee is supposed to consider each single item in every request sent to the Designated Officer. The DIT has accepted that it sent 68 items for blocking to the Designated Officer through six requests. This shows there is something that does not add up. Either the Committee is not following the Blocking Rules or the DIT is not providing a complete reply under the RTI Act, said CIS.