“Precisely because there is a misuse potential, because it’s being used by so many people, we always had been emphasising that this power be restricted only to certain limited people,” said Rakesh Maheshwari, Former Senior Director and Group Coordinator of MeitY’s Cyber Laws Division, referring to Section 79(3)(b) of the IT Act, which allows government officers to send content takedown notices to platforms.
Maheshwari, the longest-serving designated officer for Section 69A and the official who helped build India’s content takedown architecture, made this observation at the second session of MediaNama’s discussion on IT Rules and the Future of Online Speech in India on April 23 in Delhi, where he explained how the framework was designed, where it has gone wrong, and why the proposed Rule 3(4) crosses a line. Aditi Agarwal of Tech Trace moderated the session.
How 69A and 79(3)(b) were designed to work: India’s content takedown framework rests on two provisions of the IT Act, 2000. Section 69A governs blocking orders. Section 79(3)(b) governs takedown notices directed at platforms.
“At the time the act was written, it was maybe assumed that it is under the control of something which Internet Service Provider (ISP) will be able to control, and hence the word blocking. Under 79, the word is takedown because the content is in the control of that particular platform,” Maheshwari said.
With advances in technology, both blocking and takedown became possible globally, not just in India.
On how Section 69A works, Maheshwari walked through the process.
“For each state, there is a nodal officer, there is a touch point. For ministries which are likely to be impacted because of such content and which have a national security aspect, those are also the ministries which have got their own nodal officers,” Maheshwari added.
Requests are received and processed by a committee of five joint secretaries from relevant ministries, including the Department of Law and Justice and the Department of Legal Affairs. The Secretary gives final approval, with a provision for review every two months. “So per se, checks and balances are there,” he said.
Section 79(3)(b) is what Maheshwari described as a “distributed function, focusing on the unlawfulness.” Any authorised officer of a certain rank or higher can issue a takedown notice to a platform. The grounds are broader, covering any unlawful content, and the procedural safeguards are fewer.
“The power should be available only with certain limited number of people, and they should be accountable in the system if they believe that something which is unlawful and for which notice is required to be issued,” Maheshwari said.
The Sahyog portal, which centralises these notices, currently has at least 94 intermediaries onboarded. X Corp is challenging it before the Karnataka High Court.
The discrepancy in who can send notices: Maheshwari added that Delhi…
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