What HC suggested on age of consent and age gap, and the implications

Article in the Indian Express dated April 30, 2019 regarding the POCSO Act by Kaunain Sheriff M. and Abantika Ghosh. Link to this article:

http://epaper.indianexpress.com/c/38960168

To preserve freedoms online, amend the IT Act

Source: Hindustan Times dated 16.04.2019

• GURSHABAD GROVER (Gurshabad Grover is senior policy officer, the Centre for Internet and Society)

Look into the mechanisms that allow the government and ISPs to carry out online censorship without accountability

The issue of blocking of websites and online services in India has gained traction after internet users reported that services like Reddit and Telegram were inaccessible on certain Internet Service Providers (ISPs). The befuddlement of users calls for a look into the mechanisms that allow the government and ISPs to carry out online censorship without accountability.

Among other things, Section 69A of the Information Technology (IT) Act, which regulates takedown and blocking of online content, allows both government departments and courts to issue directions to ISPs to block websites. Since court orders are in the public domain, it is possible to know this set of blocked websites and URLs. However, the process is much more opaque when it comes to government orders.

The Information Technology (Procedure and Safeguards for Blocking for Access of Information by Public) Rules, 2009, issued under the Act, detail a process entirely driven through decisions made by executive-appointed officers. Although some scrutiny of such orders is required normally, it can be waived in cases of emergencies. The process does not require judicial sanction, and does not present an opportunity of a fair hearing to the website owner. Notably, the rules also mandate ISPs to maintain all such government requests as confidential, thus making the process and complete list of blocked websites unavailable to the general public.

In the absence of transparency, we have to rely on a mix of user reports and media reports that carry leaked government documents to get a glimpse into what websites the government is blocking. Civil society efforts to get the entire list of blocked websites have repeatedly failed. In response to the Right to Information (RTI) request filed by the Software Freedom Law Centre India in August 2017, the ministry of electronics and information technology refused to provide the entire of list of blocked websites citing national security and public order, but only revealed the number of blocked websites: 11,422.

Unsurprisingly, ISPs do not share this information because of the confidentiality provision in the rules. A 2017 study by the Centre for Internet and Society (CIS) found all five ISPs surveyed refused to share information about website blocking requests. In July 2018, the Bharat Sanchar Nagam Limited rejected the RTI request by CIS which asked for the list of blocked websites.

The lack of transparency, clear guidelines, and a monitoring mechanism means that there are various forms of arbitrary behaviour by ISPs. First and most importantly, there is no way to ascertain whether a website block has legal backing through a government order because of the aforementioned confidentiality clause. Second, the rules define no technical method for the ISPs to follow to block the website. This results in some ISPs suppressing Domain Name System queries (which translate human-parseable addresses like ‘example.com’ to their network address, ‘93.184.216.34’), or using the Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) headers to block requests. Third, as has been made clear with recent user reports, users in different regions and telecom circles, but serviced by the same ISP, may be facing a different list of blocked websites. Fourth, when blocking orders are rescinded, there is no way to make sure that ISPs have unblocked the websites. These factors mean that two Indians can have wildly different experiences with online censorship.

Organisations like the Internet Freedom Foundation have also been pointing out how, if ISPs block websites in a non-transparent way (for example, when there is no information page mentioning a government order presented to users when they attempt to access a blocked website), it constitutes a violation of the net neutrality rules that ISPs are bound to since July 2018.

Sex on pretext of marriage is rape, says SC

Source: DNA dated 16.04.2019

New Delhi: The Supreme Court has ruled that sex on the pretext of marriage is rape and degrading to the honour of a woman.

A bench of Justices L Nageswara Rao and MR Shah in a recent judgment observed that rape offends a woman’s dignity and self-esteem. The court observed such incidents were on the rise in modern society. “It tantamounts to a serious blow to the supreme honour of a woman.”

The order came on a case filed by a woman accusing a doctor from Chhattisgarh of raping her in 2013.

Deaths of Taslim and Gufran

Article in the Indian Express dated April 2nd, 2019 regarding the Reforms in criminal justice system and Custodial practices by Sana Das (Independent Consultant on Criminal Justice Reforms). Link to this article:

http://epaper.indianexpress.com/c/38150989

Where credit isn't due: row over Javed Akhtar's lyrics shows how producers defeat copyright laws

Article in the Indian Express dated April 2nd, 2019 regarding India's Copyright law by Arul George Scaria (Assistant Professor, National Law University, Delhi). Link to this article:

http://epaper.indianexpress.com/c/38153776

Supreme Court dilutes norms to pick judges: Relaxes Criteria For Lawyers, Leaves Centre In A Fix

Source: Times of India dated 2nd April 2019

Pradeep.Thakur@timesgroup.com

New Delhi:
Six months after the Supreme Court collegium deferred recommendations for appointment of 16 advocates as judges of Allahabad high court based on objections raised by the Centre, it has now recommended 10 of them after diluting certain appointment criteria finalised by the five top judges of the apex court in 2017.

The latest recommendations, which include the brother-in-law of a SC judge and the son of a former HC judge besides some others earlier disqualified on income parameters, has created procedural problems for the Centre, which could once again refer the matter back to the SC. The threejudge SC collegium’s decision, it is felt, is violative of certain conditions of appointment of HC judges as determined in the Memorandum of Procedure (MoP) finalised by the top judges of the apex court.

On March 10, 2017, a five-judge SC collegium — comprising then CJI J S Khehar and Justices Dipak Misra, J Chelameswar, Ranjan Gogoi and Madan B Lokur — unanimously finalised the MoP and sent it to the Centre with clearly laid down income criteria that a candidate from the bar should have an average professional income of Rs 7 lakh or more in the preceding five years.

The MoP was finalised in compliance with an order passed by a constitution bench of the SC on December 16, 2015, in the National Judicial Appointments Commission case.

The latest order of the apex court collegium for appointments in Allahabad high court — dated February 12 and signed by CJI Ranjan Gogoi and Justices A K Sikri and S A Bobde — has diluted the income criteria as many candidates fell short of the required annual income norm.

“The collegium has duly taken note of the fact that net professional income of some of the recommendees is less than the prescribed minimum limit of Rs 7 lakh. The collegium considers it appropriate to relax the income criterion to a reasonable extent in cases where such recommendees belong to categories of SC/ST/ OBC or represent government in their capacity as standing/panel counsel before the courts,” the collegium said.

The government, however, is perplexed at the dilution of the income criteria as the apex court collegium, since finalisation of the 2017 MoP, had rejected at least a dozen recommendations for appointment as judges of the high courts of Kerala, Orissa, Madras and Calcutta.

If the government goes ahead with the collegium’s latest recommendations, it could invite litigation from those who were rejected in the recent past on income criteria. The MoP finalised in 2017 had set minimum age at 45 years for an advocate to be recommended for HC judge with the upper limit set at 55 years.

The MoP had also clarified that an advocate be an income tax assessee for the preceding 10 years and have a minimum average net professional income.