Free Speech & Digital Rights — 44 Valkya Editorial digests
Article 19(1)(a) and the digital public sphere — content blocking under Section 69A, intermediary liability and safe harbour, the IT Rules, online defamation, and the boundary between regulation and censorship.
A Delhi High Court vacation bench dismissed Telegram's challenge to a temporary, nationwide block imposed ahead of the NEET-UG 2026 re-examination. Justice Tejas Karia held that Section 69A of the IT Act lets the Centre block an entire intermediary platform — not merely individual URLs or content — and that the emergency block cleared the proportionality test as the least restrictive measure available.
In 1970 a three-judge Supreme Court bench, speaking through Chief Justice Hidayatullah, upheld the criminal-contempt conviction of a sitting Chief Minister for press-conference remarks attacking the judiciary. A digest of the facts, the line between fair criticism and scandalising the court, the place of Article 19(1)(a), and the reduced fine.
In 1962 a six-judge Constitution Bench struck down nightly police visits to a suspect's home but refused to recognise a general right to privacy. A digest of the facts, the split between majority and dissent, and how Justice Subba Rao's lone dissent was vindicated half a century later.
In 1950 a six-judge Constitution Bench struck down a Madras ban on the weekly Cross Roads, holding that the freedom of speech under Article 19(1)(a) includes the freedom of circulation, and that restrictions for ordinary public order fell outside the narrow Article 19(2) as it then stood. A digest of one of the Supreme Court's first free-speech rulings and the constitutional amendment it prompted.
In April 2025 the Delhi High Court refused to injunct four social-media influencers who reviewed a protein supplement against the maker's defamation and trademark claims. Justice Amit Bansal held that evidence-based product criticism grounded in accredited lab reports is prima facie fair comment and protected free speech, not disparagement.
In 1995 a three-judge Supreme Court bench held that the airwaves are public property, that the freedom to telecast and to receive information is part of Article 19(1)(a), and that the State could not claim an absolute broadcasting monopoly. A digest of the Hero Cup dispute, the holding on spectrum and free speech, and the case's role in the birth of an independent public broadcaster.
On 11 May 2016, a two-judge bench struck down TRAI's call-drop compensation regulation as ultra vires and manifestly arbitrary under Articles 14 and 19(1)(g) — engaging both Wednesbury manifest-arbitrariness and the doctrine of proportionality to review a regulator's subordinate legislation.
On 4 December 2025, the Gujarat High Court quashed a series of overlapping prohibitory orders, holding that emergency power cannot become normal governance and that such orders must be widely publicised, not merely gazetted.
On 1 March 2025, a Full Bench of the Madhya Pradesh High Court annulled the 2015 notification exempting 62 forest species from the Transit Rules as ultra vires the Indian Forest Act and violative of Articles 14, 21 and 48-A.
On 24 September 2025, the Karnataka High Court upheld the Centre's Sahyog Portal, holding that Section 79(3)(b) of the IT Act is a standalone source of authority for information-blocking notices and that Shreya Singhal does not occupy the field.
On 29 April 2026, a two-judge bench dismissed thirteen writs, two SLPs and eight contempts in the long-running hate-speech batch, holding that constitutional courts cannot create criminal offences, that no legislative vacuum exists in the IPC/BNS framework, and that police failure to register a suo motu FIR is not, by itself, contempt.
On 29 May 2026, Justice Sachin Datta of the Delhi High Court delivered a 144-page judgment recognising the Right to be Forgotten as an integral facet of informational privacy under Article 21 and laying down a workable framework for de-indexing judicial records.
On 26 May 2026, an Allahabad High Court division bench quashed an FIR, chargesheet and cognizance order against an advocate prosecuted for conspiracy after he filed a GST statutory appeal on behalf of his client using the Electronic Credit Ledger for pre-deposit.
On 6 April 2026, a two-judge bench set aside convictions under section 294(b) IPC for use of an expletive in a heated exchange, holding that mere abusive or vulgar language without sexual or prurient content does not amount to obscenity.
On 14 August 2021, a Bombay High Court division bench stayed Rules 9(1) and 9(3) of the IT Rules 2021 pan-India — holding that the Code of Ethics for digital news media travels beyond the rule-making power conferred by the IT Act and chills Article 19(1)(a) speech.
Bombay HC (Aurangabad) quashes an FIR under the struck-down Section 66A IT Act years after Shreya Singhal, condemning police 'high-handedness' over a dead law.
The May-June 2026 cycle in Indian cyber and data-protection practice is dominated by the DPDP Rules 2025 first-year operationalisation, the transitional jurisprudence under Section 43A of the IT Act 2000 in its final operative phase, and the continuing post-Kunal Kamra recalibration of the intermediary-liability framework. A focused round-up of what changed in policy, what changed in the courts, and what practitioners are tracking.
On 11 May 2020, the Supreme Court applied the Anuradha Bhasin framework to J&K's 4G blackout, constituting a Special Committee and holding that restrictions must be calibrated territorially and temporally to what is actually necessary.
On 4 March 2020 a three-judge bench of the Supreme Court struck down the RBI Circular of 6 April 2018 that had directed banks and other RBI-regulated entities to refuse banking services to cryptocurrency exchanges. The judgment is the foundational Indian authority on proportionality review of regulator action affecting the Article 19(1)(g) right to trade — and is widely misreported as having legalised cryptocurrency, which it did not do.
On 12 April 2021, a single judge of the Delhi High Court granted interim de-indexing of news reports of a prosecution that had ended in acquittal, applying the right to be forgotten under Article 21.
On 23 September 2024, the Supreme Court held that viewing and storing child sexual exploitative material is punishable under s.15 POCSO and s.67B IT Act, and replaced 'child pornography' with 'CSEAM'.
A 2016 Delhi High Court division bench refused to read constitutional restraints into a click-wrap consent transaction but moulded transitional relief — and the case has been pending before a five-judge Constitution Bench of the Supreme Court ever since.
A Bombay High Court division bench split 1-1 in January 2024 on the constitutional validity of the IT Rules 2023 Fact Check Unit. The tie-breaking opinion of Justice A.S. Chandurkar in September 2024 struck down Rule 3(1)(b)(v) — vague, overbroad, and structurally inviting the state to be judge in its own cause.
On 22 July 1992, a two-judge bench of the Supreme Court (A.M. Ahmadi J. authoring, with M.M. Punchhi J. concurring) held that the Life Insurance Corporation is 'State' within Article 12 of the Constitution and is bound by Part III fundamental rights; that the right of reply — the right of a citizen to use the same forum that has carried criticism of his work to publish a rejoinder — is integral to the freedom of speech and expression guaranteed by Article 19(1)(a); and that non-statutory administrative guidelines cannot ground a restriction on speech under Article 19(2). The companion appeal concerning Tapan Bose's documentary 'Beyond Genocide' on the Bhopal gas disaster applied the same framework to Doordarshan. The judgment is the doctrinal bridge between Sukhdev Singh's Article 12 jurisprudence and the broadcasting-access cases that culminated in Cricket Association of Bengal.
On 2 May 2016, a five-judge Constitution Bench of the Supreme Court — in a judgment authored by Justice A.K. Sikri — upheld the Madhya Pradesh Niji Vyavsayik Shikshan Sanstha (Pravesh Ka Viniyaman Avam Shulk Ka Nirdharan) Adhiniyam 2007, which subjected private unaided professional educational institutions to State regulation over admissions, fee fixation, reservation and eligibility criteria. The Bench formally articulated and applied the four-prong proportionality test — legitimate aim, suitability, necessity and balancing — as the working standard for assessing reasonableness of restrictions under Article 19(6) on the Article 19(1)(g) right of educational institutions. A close reading of Sikri J's reasoning, the post-T.M.A. Pai and Inamdar regulatory architecture, education as a noble occupation, the proportionality test's doctrinal afterlife in Puttaswamy, Aadhaar and Anuradha Bhasin, and the regulatory framework that NEET would inherit in CMC Vellore (2020).
On 25 September 2018 a five-judge Constitution Bench led by Chief Justice Dipak Misra — Misra CJ, Nariman, Khanwilkar, Chandrachud and Indu Malhotra JJ. — declined to judicially bar persons against whom charges had been framed from contesting elections, holding that the disqualification regime under Articles 102 and 191 read with Section 8 of the Representation of the People Act 1951 is exhaustive and that only Parliament can add. The Bench instead issued five binding directions on Form 26 disclosure, party-website publication and three-times newspaper-and-electronic-media publicity post-nomination, and urged Parliament to legislate decriminalisation. The framework was extended in Rambabu Singh Thakur (2020) — 48-hour publication and selection-reasons requirement — and enforced through contempt in Brajesh Singh (2021).
On 13 March 2003, a three-judge Bench of the Supreme Court struck down Section 33B of the Representation of the People Act 1951 — inserted by the 2002 Amendment to neutralise the Court's direction in ADR (2002) — as unconstitutional and violative of Article 19(1)(a). The Court reaffirmed that the voter's right to know the criminal antecedents, assets, liabilities and educational qualifications of candidates is part of the freedom of speech and expression, and read down Section 33A as supplementing — not supplanting — the wider disclosure regime articulated by the Court and the Election Commission. Justice Dharmadhikari concurred in part and dissented in part.
On 13 December 2017, a three-judge bench ordered search engines to auto-block pre-natal sex-determination advertisements, recalibrating the Shreya Singhal intermediary safe-harbour for PCPNDT enforcement.
On 24 March 2015, a two-judge bench struck down Section 66A of the IT Act as unconstitutionally vague and overbroad, reshaping India's online-speech and intermediary-liability law.
On 4 March 2024, a unanimous seven-judge bench held that legislators enjoy no immunity from bribery prosecution under Articles 105(2) and 194(2), overruling P.V. Narasimha Rao.
On 23 November 2020, the Orissa High Court refused bail and articulated India's first judicial recognition of the right to be forgotten for survivors of sexual offences.
Bombay HC holds a national-security ban is a legitimate factor for the Registrar to refuse 'well-known' mark status; there is no vested right to recognition.
On 30 June 2023, a single bench of the Karnataka High Court dismissed Twitter's challenge to MeitY blocking orders covering 39 URLs and 1,474 accounts — and imposed exemplary costs of fifty lakh rupees. Section 69A, the court held, authorises account-level blocking; foreign intermediaries have only limited Article 19 standing; and selective compliance attracts deterrent costs.
On 15 February 2024, a five-judge Constitution Bench unanimously struck down the Electoral Bonds Scheme and the Finance Act, 2017 amendments to the RBI Act, Companies Act, Income Tax Act, and Representation of the People Act that had enabled it. The judgment held the architecture violated the voter's right to information under Article 19(1)(a), failed the proportionality test, and could not be sustained on the asserted ground of donor confidentiality. A digest of the bench, the doctrinal logic, the consequential directions to SBI to disclose bond purchase and redemption data, and what the judgment now requires.
On 10 January 2020, a three-judge bench of the Supreme Court led by Justice N.V. Ramana — hearing challenges to the communications shutdown imposed on Jammu and Kashmir after the August 2019 abrogation of Article 370 — held that the freedom of speech and the freedom to practise trade and profession over the internet are protected under Articles 19(1)(a) and 19(1)(g) of the Constitution; that restrictions on those freedoms must satisfy a four-step proportionality test imported from Puttaswamy; that suspension orders under the Temporary Suspension of Telecom Services Rules 2017 must be published and subjected to mandatory periodic review; and that Section 144 CrPC cannot be deployed to suppress legitimate dissent. The companion judgment in Ghulam Nabi Azad v. Union of India laid down the operative directions on Section 144.
On 2 November 2018, Pratibha M. Singh, J. of the Delhi High Court held that the luxury reseller darveys.com was not a passive intermediary under Section 79 of the Information Technology Act 2000 and could not claim the safe-harbour against trade-mark infringement. The judgment enumerated some twenty-six indicia of active involvement — paid membership, curated marketplace, control over which sellers could list, authenticity guarantees, logistics handling, non-disclosure of seller identities and use of the Louboutin name and Mr. Louboutin's image as meta-tags. A close reading of the active-versus-passive intermediary test under Section 79 read with Rule 3 of the Intermediary Guidelines Rules 2011, the post-judgment doctrinal arc through Amazon Seller v. Modicare and the Division Bench gloss on Amway v. 1MG.
On 22 May 2026, Justice Mini Pushkarna of the Delhi High Court held that the use of a registered trademark as a bidding keyword to trigger sponsored advertisements constitutes infringement under Section 29(6)(d) of the Trade Marks Act, 1999 — and that Google could not, on the record before the Court, claim safe harbour under Section 79 of the Information Technology Act, 2000. The judgment, which awarded damages of ₹30 lakh in favour of Hindware, sets the operative position on keyword-advertising trademark infringement in India. A digest of the holding, the doctrinal logic, and the implications for platforms and advertisers.
On 21 April 2026, a two-judge bench of Justices Navin Chawla and Ravinder Dudeja of the Delhi High Court convicted advocate Gulshan Pahuja — who runs the YouTube channel 'Fight 4 Judicial Reforms' — of criminal contempt under Section 2(c) of the Contempt of Courts Act, 1971, for content that the Court held was designed to scandalise the judiciary as a whole. On 16 May 2026, the same Bench sentenced Pahuja to six months' simple imprisonment and a fine of ₹2,000 in each of two criminal contempt cases. The judgment is a recent doctrinal application of the line between fair criticism and contempt of court in the digital-content environment.
On 10 July 2013, a two-judge bench of Justices A.K. Patnaik and S.J. Mukhopadhaya struck down Section 8(4) of the Representation of the People Act, 1951 — the provision that had given sitting MPs and MLAs three months from conviction to appeal before facing disqualification. The judgment held that Parliament had no constitutional competence to enact the exception: Articles 102(1)(e) and 191(1)(e) of the Constitution operate as immediate disqualifications on conviction. A digest of the holding, the constitutional reasoning, and the political-historical consequences.
On 23 December 2016 a Division Bench of the Delhi High Court, in MySpace Inc v. Super Cassettes Industries Ltd, set aside Justice Manmohan Singh's blanket 2011 injunction and worked out the first coherent Indian framework for intermediary safe-harbour in copyright. The DB held that the proviso to Section 81 of the IT Act does not preclude an intermediary from invoking the Section 79 safe-harbour in copyright suits; that 'actual knowledge' under Section 51(a)(ii) of the Copyright Act requires knowledge of specific infringing material at a specific URL; that takedown notices must identify works with specificity, location and ownership; and that no general proactive monitoring obligation can be imposed.
On 12 August 2005 a seven-judge Constitution Bench of the Supreme Court, in P.A. Inamdar v. State of Maharashtra, refined T.M.A. Pai (2002) on the four-fold typology of educational institutions and held that the State cannot impose reservation or admission quotas on private unaided professional institutions — minority or non-minority. Chief Justice Lahoti's unanimous judgment endorsed common entrance testing, retained the Islamic Academy regulatory-committee model for fees in an interim role, disapproved Islamic Academy's directions on State-percentage quotas in unaided institutions, and held that Article 29(2) does not override Article 30(1) in minority unaided institutions — vindicating the partial dissent of Quadri J and Ruma Pal J in T.M.A. Pai. The 93rd Constitutional Amendment Act 2005, inserting Article 15(5), was Parliament's direct legislative response.
On 31 October 2002 an eleven-judge Constitution Bench of the Supreme Court, in T.M.A. Pai Foundation v. State of Karnataka, comprehensively re-stated the law on educational institutions in India — recognising the right to establish and administer an institution as an occupation under Article 19(1)(g), settling the State-wise determination of minority status, drawing the four-fold aided/unaided × minority/non-minority typology that still governs the field, overruling the free-seats/payment-seats scheme of Unni Krishnan as applied to private unaided institutions, and reading down the rigid 50% cap of St. Stephen's College on minority preference. A close reading of Chief Justice Kirpal's majority, the five separate opinions, the partial dissents of Quadri J and Ruma Pal J on the Article 29(2)/30(1) interaction, and the doctrinal arc through Islamic Academy, Inamdar, the 93rd Amendment and the RTE Act.
A five-judge Bench in 1962 upheld Section 124A IPC, but only by reading into it the limitation that has governed sedition prosecutions ever since. Six decades on, with the offence re-housed as Section 152 BNS, the Kedar Nath gloss remains the doctrinal floor — and the live question is whether the rewrite preserves or alters it.
On 13 May 2016, a two-judge Bench led by Justice Dipak Misra upheld the constitutional validity of Sections 499 and 500 of the Indian Penal Code — the criminal-defamation framework — against challenges based on the freedom of speech and expression. The reasoning rested on the proposition that reputation is constitutionally protected under Article 21, and that the criminal-defamation framework, properly construed, does not produce an undue chilling effect on expression. A digest of the holding, the doctrinal architecture, and the contemporary practitioner's framework.