Violation of Article 19(1)(a); Coercive Application of IT Rules against intermediaries

On 14th August 2021, the Madras High Court, in its interim order said that coercive application of IT Rules against intermediaries is an infringement of Article 19 (1)(a) of the Indian Constitution. The bench included Chief Justice Sanjib Banerjee and Justice PD Audikesavalu and the question before the Court was about the constitutional validity of Rule 3 and Rule 7 of the IT Rules Act.

The Court observed that Rule 3 deals with the duty to exercise due diligence by intermediaries and Rule 7 talks about coercive action against intermediaries. Further, it was observed that any action taken by citing the above two Rules would imply to challenge the constitutional validity of the rules.

The PIL against the two Rules of IT Rules Act was filed by TM Krishna and Mukund Padmanabhan, the Senior Advocate Rjeshkar Rao appearing on the behalf of Petitioners contended that Rules 3 and 7 are unconstitutional as it hasn’t been incorporated under parent legislation i.e., the Information Technology Act, 2000 (IT Act, 2000).

The court observed that the regulation imposes criminal proceedings for non-adherence by intermediaries. Furthermore, in Section 79 (2)(c) of the IT Rules, 2021, the exemptions to intermediaries enshrined in the principal act have been changed and cannot be applied if the intermediaries do not adhere to guidelines prescribed by Central Government. The reference was made to the Supreme Court judgment in Shreya Singhal v. Union of India where it was observed that the unlawful acts enshrined in Article 19(2) cannot be previewed under Section 79 of the IT Act.

As social media platforms are used by several kinds of people, a complaint may result in the platform being inaccessible to a citizen. Hence, such a situation of violation of Right under Article 19(1)(a) of the Constitution may arise. Being the interim order, the matter has been listed for further hearing on 27th October.

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