I. Introduction

The internet has come to be one of the most important venues where people can exercise their fundamental human rights in constitutional democracies. Therefore, the regulation of Internet and online content directly impacts people's constitutional rights, especially the freedoms under Articles 19(1)(a) and 19(1)(g). However, it is not a realistic option to leave the internet unregulated: due to its size and influence, it raises issues related to national security, public order, misinformation, and serious harm. Indian constitutional law recognizes that freedom of expression is not an absolute right. The matter for the constitution is not that there is censorship on the internet, but rather how it is implemented. Usually, censorship is not a blanket ban but use of administrative measures such as content-blocking orders and intermediary takedown mechanisms which are frequently non-transparent and not publicly reasoned. Within this setting, the word "necessity" is over and over again used to bring the executive action into line with the constitutional standards without any proper disclosure of the reasoning or the evidentiary basis. The way such actions bypass constitutional standards and result in excessive discretion is thus the concern that has been raised.

II. Statutory Framework Governing Internet Censorship in India

A. Constitutional Premise

From Article 19(2) of the constitution, the constitutional basis for internet censorship in India has been interpreted as one of reasonable restrictions on speech for the state's sovereignty and security, public order, and other related grounds. The constitutional scheme subjects it to conditions of necessity and proportionality.

B. Section 69A of the Information Technology Act, 2000

Section 69A of the Information Technology Act, 2000, constitutes one of the fundamental legal bases for the censorship of internet content. It gives the Central Government the authority to issue a blocking order against any online material if the government considers it "necessary or expedient" grounds as per Article 19(2).

Section 69A by focusing on a particular content rather than on general categories of speech appears to be a government action provision allowing the government to be very specific in its content-targeting. Therefore, this provision has a very broad scope. The inclusion of "expedient" along with "necessary" has the effect of lowering the threshold of intervention in the law, thus the authorities in the executive branch will have wide powers to decide when to apply censorship. This kind of drafting practically shifts the issue from constitutionally necessary to whether the administration is satisfied with the measure.

C. Procedural Architecture: The Blocking Rules, 2009

The IT (Procedure and Safeguards for Blocking for Access to Information by Public) Rules, 2009, were made to give order to the use of power under Section 69A. They provide for a committee-based process, the recording of reasons, and the periodic review of blocking directions. Conceptually, the rules acknowledge the dangers of unchecked censorship.

However, the safeguards almost exclusively operate within the executive domain. The review mechanisms are institutional rather than independent; disclosure of blocking orders and their reasoning is substantially restricted by confidentiality provisions. Even though secrecy may be justifiable in the extremely limited situations of secrecy, its frequent use prevents external scrutiny and it becomes quite hard to see if the standards of necessity and proportionality are being used consistently. Therefore, the procedural framework's effectiveness is highly dependent on the assumptions of the good faith of the actors and their internal compliance.

D. Intermediary Regulation and Indirect Content Control

The statutory framework for internet censorship gained even more momentum through the intermediary regulation under Section 79 of the IT Act and the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021. While these regulations were initially only about intermediary liability, they now have a major impact on content control.

The framework gives intermediaries safe-harbor protection which is dependent upon their compliance with takedown obligations, thus indirectly pressuring them to overtly restrict content. This setup moves censorship decisions into decentralized, privately run spaces, and these censorship decisions are usually without the procedural visibility that accompanies formal blocking under Section 69A. This indirect censorship method is thus continuing along with the statutory blocking regime but with fewer very well-defined safeguards.

III. Judicial Interpretation of Internet Censorship

A. Conditional Legitimacy and Judicial Reliance on Safeguards

The judiciary upholds the premise that online speech is protected under the constitution through the Article 19(1)(a) but can be regulated under the Article 19(2) restrictions guideline. Hence, rather than focusing on the existence of powers to censor, the courts have been primarily concerned with determining the conditions under which their proper use can be established.

It is from this perspective that the Supreme Court struck down Section 66A of the IT Act in Shreya Singhal v. Union of India for being vague and cutting deeply into the right to freedom of speech, while at the very same time approving Section 69A as a legitimate tool for content blocking. On the one hand, it was not permissible to impose criminal penalties based on indeterminate standards, but on the other hand, it was possible to justify the limiting of access to some areas if such limitations were confined only to the enumerated grounds and were accompanied by the observance of procedural safeguards.

The main reason why the Court upheld Section 69A was because the statute put in place a procedural framework for the alleged activity which was assumed by the court to be followed. This sort of judicial restraint demonstrates the institutional maturity of the judiciary in public order and security related matters but at the same time, it limits the scope of judicial review on whether and how the executive's conception of necessity is reconciled and applied to the particulars of each case.

B. Intermediary Regulation, Self-Censorship, and Diffused Control

Judges' understanding of the risk of excessive removals and self-censorship was first seen in MouthShut.com v. Union of India. Here, the Supreme Court ruled that an intermediary who is unsure or under a vague obligation might be more likely to remove content to avoid any liability. The Court also pointed out that a chilling effect does not necessarily require the State to directly impose censorship; the latter can work also through private actors who respond to the regulatory pressure.

Among the recent court cases that exhibit the judges' concern over the huge and unclear nature of such mechanisms, there is Kunal Kamra v. Union of India where the Bombay high court struck down the fact checking unit provision from the 2023 IT Amendment rules.

C. Necessity, Proportionality, and Restrained Enforcement

During‍‌‍‍‌ the case of Anuradha Bhasin v. Union of India, the Court recognized that the internet is an essential medium for the exercise of fundamental rights and reiterated the proportionality principle. Nevertheless, the Court mostly relied on the executive review and the role of the judiciary as a supervisor was kept at a minimum. In these judgments, the constitutional norms laid down are very high, but their implementation gets delayed.

Hence, the judicial decisions taken in the last ten years point to a legal philosophy that keeps the legitimacy of internet censorship only to the presence of safeguards and proportionality, apart from depending on the statutory framework and the executive implementation for giving effect to such conditions.

IV. Critical Analysis: The Erosion of Constitutional Discipline in Internet Censorship

A. Necessity as a Weakened Constitutional Standard

In Indian constitutional law, necessity is meant to serve as a safeguard. With regard to internet censorship, the necessity requirement has, to a large extent, been reduced to a mere formality and not an actually demonstrated standard.

This weakening of the requirement is prompted by the statutory language which allows blocking if the action is "necessary or expedient," and judicial reviews which generally limit themselves to checking whether a legitimate ground under Article 19(2) has been cited. The examination often does not even go as far as reviewing whether it was an absolute necessity for the State to block the specific content in question. Consequently, necessity has ceased to be the intended gateway device and has become simply a term denoting the executive's satisfaction.

B. Procedural Safeguards Without Verifiability

Judges‍‌‍‍‌ recognizing internet censorship powers by the executive branch, have been depending on the presence of some procedural safeguards like the review conducted by a committee, the giving of recorded reasons, and the periodic reconsideration to ensure that the executive discretion remains constitutionally legitimate. But at the same time, how effective they are will depend solely on the possibility of verifying the exercise of executive ‍‌‍‍‌discretion.

The‍‌‍‍‌ common habit of sealing blocking orders greatly weakens the functionality of this measure. When the orders and their reasons remain confidential, the parties most likely to be affected are the ones who are deprived of sufficient information to decide whether the protective measures were really implemented and the courts do not know either. Therefore, the procedural safeguards may have the effect of functioning only as the supposed limits that the courts rely on in their decisions but which are not subject to external ‍‌‍‍‌scrutiny.

Therefore, overbreadth and error will continue in cases where safeguards are present but where, structurally, they remain unchallenged.

C. Indirect Regulation and the Fragmentation of Accountability

The growing regulation of intermediaries has further extended the strain on constitutional coherence. Doctrinal safeguards are mostly attached to formal state action; however, modern content restrictions are more and more carried out through regulatory pressure on intermediaries and by making legal immunity dependent on compliance with the takedown obligations, the framework incentives platforms to take censorship decisions inside their organizations.

From the viewpoint of constitutionality, such a change disconnects responsibility. Content is removed without a proper order, without a clear statutory authority, and most of the time without the possibility of a real redress. Usually are given very little information about the reason or proportionality of the restriction.

The consequences of this situation have different impacts. Independent journalists, small publishers, and individual creators those least equipped to challenge removals are the ones most affected. Thus, indirect regulation leads to the same limiting effects as a direct censorship, while it is not subject to the procedural discipline that allowed the constitutional recognition of formal blocking powers.

D. Judicial Articulation and Institutional Restraint

The‍‌‍‍‌ doctrine that regulates internet censorship by the courts is powerful. The judiciary has indicated the three criteria that the necessity, proportionality and procedural fairness quite clearly, and that the censorship powers which are exercised with restraint are only constitutionally permissible. However, the intervention of the judiciary has in several instances relied more on the letter of the law than a thorough examination of the facts on the ‍‌‍‍‌ground. Judicial deference to the legislative by uncritically assuming that safeguards that are secret or decentralised are being complied with, constitutional standards are at risk of being merely normalised as abstract principles instead of being enforced as concrete limits. The result is a case-law where doctrinal clarity is combined with practical insulation from ‍‌‍‍‌review.

V. Conclusion and Recommendations

Internet censorship in India was first ruled legally constitutional, but only when it is an exceptional measure subject to the stringent principles of necessity, proportionality, and accountability. Although the legislative framework acknowledges these limits and the courts have clearly explained them in their rulings, the actual application of these principles has increasingly softened their limiting effect. Granting broad discretion, making blocking orders less visible, and resorting to indirect methods of regulation have all contributed to the erosion of the conditions that justify censorship under the constitution.

Transparency ought to operate as a rule rather than as a privilege. Making blocking orders publicly available with only a few and absolutely necessary redactions would bring back the very necessary conditions for both the court and the public to have a look at and question the ‍‌‍‍‌matter.

Secondly,‍‌‍‍‌ in order to stop procedural safeguards from being just internal guarantees, a timed review of blocking orders and basic notice to affected publishers and intermediaries should be ‍‌‍‍‌required.

Thirdly,‍‌‍‍‌ if censorship is done by intermediaries because of state compulsion, then such censorship should be held to the same procedural standards.

These‍‌‍‍‌ measures propose that the way public authorities censor should be consistent with the existing constitutional reasoning that already controls, thus, they make sure that the restrictions of online speech are not only clearly necessary but also accountable to the ‍‌‍‍‌institutions.

References

Constitutional Provisions

• Constitution of India

o Article 19(1)(a)

o Article 19(1)(g)

o Article 19(2)

Statutes and Rules

• Information Technology Act, 2000

o Section 66A

o Section 69A

o Section 79

• Information Technology (Procedure and Safeguards for Blocking for Access of Information by Public) Rules, 2009

• Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021

• Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Amendment Rules, 2023

Judicial Decisions

• Shreya Singhal v. Union of India (2015)

• MouthShut.com v. Union of India (2017)

• Justice K.S. Puttaswamy (Retd.) v. Union of India (2017)

• Anuradha Bhasin v. Union of India (2020)

• Kunal Kamra v. Union of India (Bombay High Court)

NAME - TRIBUDH SAHA

COLLEGE - O.P. JINDAL GLOBAL UNIVERSITY

INTERNSHIP MONTH - DECEMBER