I've unfortunately had the misfortune of dealing with the drafting of the legal framework under Section 69A of the Information Technology Act, and the very, very creative interpretations of that flawed legal measure from the Govt of India since 2010. Its rotten, unconstitutional.

S. 69A was tacked on to the IT Act amendments in 2008-09 to give legal air cover for the completely unconstitutional Ministerial order framework for website blocking & a 2003 notification. The amendment was passed by voice vote in a din in Parliament, after the 26 Dec attacks.

When the Govt drafted the rules for it in 2010-11, the stakeholder feedback it received was that there were insufficient checks, it would be misused, & that the "confidentiality of the blocking orders" clause they added was violative of the RTI act, beyond the IT Act, & perverse

Today, if your website or social media handle is blocked in India, you will not be notified by the government is nearly all circumstances, and the Ministry of Electronics and IT will refuse to share the blocking orders with you, review committee minutes. Good luck going to court.

So, this rotten framework needs to go. Ideally, our elected lawmakers and ministers should do it. Else, no judge who has sworn to uphold the Constitution and the fundamental right it guarantees can allow the current Indian website blocking rules, practices to stand.

If you ever think web content blocking orders need to happen; why be afraid of transparency, legal process, involving judges directly and ensuring independent oversight?

My friend @pranesh said years ago that it is harder to ban books in India physically than block words online.