India’s courtrooms are grappling with all sorts of tech policy questions this month. Here are 11 cases worth looking out for.
Got a case you think we should cover? Did a recent tech policy judgment impact your business? What more can we do to make our legal coverage less Delhi-centric? Send in your inputs to aarathi@medianama.com.
Two biggies to keep an eye on
Madhya Pradesh may have a new online gambling law soon
The tl;dr of the case: In 2022, a 26-year-old man in Madhya Pradesh was charged with various criminal offences. His alleged crime: withdrawing Rs 8.51 lakh from his grandfather’s pension account to play “online satta of [the] IPL”. Satta is a type of gambling game. The Madhya Pradesh High Court granted him bail in July last year provided he deposited 50% of the withdrawn amount within 15 days. While doing so, it took suo motu cognisance of online gambling in the state—it wanted the state and Indian governments to interrogate “online gambling schemes”. A key question raised by the Court: whether these games “are just and correct and in accordance with the legal provisions obtaining in the country or there is need [sic] to check such schemes to save the youth of the country from being diverted to unlawful activities spoiling their career”.
What does any of that have to do with a law: Well, one way to “check such schemes” is to bring in a law for regulating online games. On the state government’s request, the Court gave it three months to develop a law regulating online gambling in the state and get it cleared by the state assembly.
Why does this matter: States across India are grappling with how to regulate online gambling. Most of them have simply passed or amended laws banning online gambling. But because of how those bans are framed, they often end up banning games that are not legally recognised to be gambling games. Companies offering the latter have challenged the wide scope of these bans in Court—and in some cases, they were successful in getting them overturned. While these laws may hurt businesses, they also do little to address the real and deadly concerns of gaming-related harms. So, as we’ve previously reported, “how the Madhya Pradesh government approaches the issue may once again force a reckoning for India’s gaming and gambling sector”.
Case number: MCRC 24271/2022
Next hearing: 13/03/2023
Reading material: Here’s our coverage of the December hearing. We round up the Tamil Nadu government’s winding journey to revive its struck-down online gambling ban. Here’s an explainer on why India’s gambling (and gaming) laws are so complex and need to look at the social harms caused by gaming too. As the father of a suicide victim who pawned his mother’s jewellery to play online rummy told MediaNama:
“Only the parents who lost their children to this will know the sorrow that it causes. For poor people, these games initially attract them by giving small amounts as winnings to make them feel like they are getting something back. But this is just to lure them in. After that, there is no turning back. These games are manipulative. It makes these children steal from their own homes. They make even a responsible child a thief. I haven’t studied. But I put my children in convent schools in LKG itself because I wanted them to know English and have an education. From LKG to 12th grade, I made him study. I earn only to spend on their education. The money I can make back. But, can I get my son back? He was only 20 years old.”
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How much does the government surveil us online?
A quick recap: The government can intercept, monitor, and decrypt any information transmitted online under Section 69 of the Information and Technology Act, 2000. According to the Delhi-based digital advocacy group Internet Freedom Foundation (IFF), “this means that the central government has the power to conduct an all round e-surveillance of citizens through the information stored in their computers”. IFF wanted to know more about how many e-surveillance orders the government was issuing under Section 69.
So there’s a court case going on about these powers: Yes. In 2018, the Internet Freedom Foundation (IFF) started asking the Ministry of Home Affairs about the scope of its e-surveillance under Section 69 of the IT Act. Six Right to Information (RTI) applications were filed—the Ministry rejected them on national security grounds. IFF appealed the verdict. The Ministry refused to cough up the information again, stating that “minimal data was maintained and records pertaining to the information sought were destroyed from time to time”. A second appeal before the Chief Information Commissioner was filed. The Commissioner accepted a different ground from the Ministry. Its public information officer (in charge of responding to RTIs) didn’t maintain any information on e-surveillance orders. IFF went on to challenge the Commissioner at the Delhi High Court last year—under the name of its Executive Director, Apar Gupta.
Why does this matter: This case is reflective of a larger malaise affecting tech policy in India: denying citizens public information on multiple (and sometimes questionable) grounds. If the public doesn’t have access to key information on government powers, then challenging them becomes difficult. What’s worse—recently proposed amendments to the Right to Information Act, 2005 (RTI Act), might make it even harder to access information on the government.
Case number: WP (C) 5662/2022
Next hearing: 21/03/2023.
Reading material: IFF wraps up the history of the case—with easy access to all the documents at the centre of it. Experts speaking to MediaNama mull over this troubling trend of opaque tech policy-making in India. We report on why the RTI Act amendments could severely limit public access to government information.
More tech policy cases to keep track of
March 6th: The Indian government will continue arguing against Twitter at the Karnataka High Court. The bone of contention—were 39 government orders to block tweets and user accounts really “substantively and procedurally” non-compliant with the law as Twitter alleges? Click here for everything that went down in the last hearing. Case number: WP 12837/2022.
March 9th: A Pune-based VPN’s challenge to the Indian government’s much-talked-about cybersecurity rules continues at the Delhi High Court. Here’s how the government defended its rules last time. Case number: WP (C) 13997/2022.
March 14th: The Supreme Court will continue hearing a suo motu case from 2015 on the dissemination of child pornography online. Read our reporting on it here. Case number: SMW (Crl) 3/2015.
March 23rd and 27th: Exam prep giant Allen took Telegram to the Delhi High Court over copyright infringement concerns. Its educational materials were allegedly illegally circulating on the platform. On a similar note, Jagran Prakashan, which publishes the Hindi newspaper Dainik Bhaskar, also challenged Telegram at the Delhi High Court over copies of its e-newspapers floating around the platform. The cases will be heard on March 23rd and 27th respectively. We round up all of Telegram’s copyright woes at the Delhi High Court here. Case numbers: CS (COMM) 505/2020 and CS (COMM) 146/2020.
March 29th: Also on the chopping block for copyright infringement claims—WhatsApp. Bennett Coleman and Co. Ltd., one of India’s largest newspaper publishers, isn’t happy about its e-newspapers being shared for free on the messaging app. Here’s more on WhatsApp’s other copyright issues in India. MediaNama‘s Editor Nikhil Pahwa rounds up the oddities of these copyright cases below. Case number: CS (COMM) 232/2021.
Waiting around: Some court orders issued over the past few months mentioned that the cases will be heard after a few weeks. So, while we don’t have dates for these hearings, they could pop up in March:
- Gaming companies take on Andhra gaming ban: Filed in 2020, the companies want the ban to be struck down for being unlawful, arbitrary, and ultra vires of the fundamental rights listed in the Indian Constitution. We covered what happened in the January 31st hearing here—the case will be listed after four weeks. Here’s how similar challenges by gaming companies against bans in Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, and Kerala went down. Hint: the companies won. Case numbers: WP 19659/2020, WP 19571/2020, WP 19732/2020.
- State governments turn tables on gaming companies: The Karnataka and Tamil Nadu governments challenged High Court orders that struck down their gaming bans at the Supreme Court. The Court took up Tamil Nadu’s case last year—and then clubbed the Karnataka case with it. A hearing was dropped earlier this year—while on February 21st, the Court ordered the case to be heard after four weeks. Case numbers: SPL (C) 19981/2021, SLP (C) 19982/2021, SLP (C) 19983/2021, SLP (C) 19984/2021, SLP (C) 19985/2021, SLP (C) 19986/2021, SLP (C) 19987/2021, SLP (C) 19988/2021.
- Searching and seizing with care: That’s what the Foundation for Media Professionals want, challenging the wide search and seizure powers given to Indian law enforcement agencies. We tracked the last Supreme Court hearing here. In December, the Court ordered the case to be heard after 12 weeks. Case number: WP (Crl) 395/2022.
Bidding farewell: Last month, we reported on Abhijit Iyer Mitra’s petition against Twitter at the Delhi High Court. Mitra challenged Twitter’s decision to suspend his account after he tweeted on the Supreme Court granting Alt News co-founder Mohammed Zubair bail. The account and tweet were later restored by Twitter—which is why Mitra withdrew the suit, as per a February 16th order. “However, he [Mitra’s lawyer] reserves the plaintiff’s [Mitra] right to agitate the question of law raised in this suit in the future, if necessary,” the Delhi High Court’s order noted. Read more about Mitra’s complaints here. Case number: CS(OS) 671/2022.
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