IT Act not tabled in Lok Sabha even after multiple invocations

Two years have gone by after formulating new rules for Information Technology Act, 2000 but the Narendra Modi government appears to have not tabled it yet in Lok Sabha, though its provisions have been invoked multiple times, the recent being the blocking of video links of a BBC documentary that is critical of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

The Committees of Subordinate Legislation of Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha have also not taken up these rules for scrutiny, responses to RTI queries have shown.

Superseding the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines) Rules 2011, the Modi government notified the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021 on 25 February, 2021 keeping in mind the development of social media.

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Once the rules are formulated, the government has to table it in Parliament within 15 days of its notification to MPs to scrutinise it, suggest a modification or altogether reject it to ensure that the government does not abuse its rule-making power to transgress the letter and spirit of the principal enactment.

However, in response to an RTI query by transparency activist Venkatesh Nayak, Lok Sabha Secretariat has said its bulletin does not have any mention of the rules being tabled in the House till now.

The Lok Sabha Secretariat said efforts were made to trace the date of laying of the gazette notification of the Rules by going through Bulletin Part-I for 2021 and 2022, which contain all the papers laid on the Table of the House, during that period, "but the same could not be traced".

"It seems that the concerned Ministry i.e. Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology have not forwarded the said notification for laying on the Table of the House within a period of 15 days of its publication in the official Gazette. (Para 6.15 of the Government and Parliament-Procedure to be followed by Ministries in connection with Parliamentary work)," it said.

However, the RTI response said, the date of laying of the said notification can be traced if the Ministry provides the letter number/date of sending of the notification to the Secretariat for laying.

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In a separate response, Rajya Sabha Secretariat said records of notifications laid on the Table of the Rajya Sabha are published date-wise through Parliamentary Bulletin Part-I and the electronic data from the 185th Session, i.e. from 30 November, 1998, onwards is available in the public domain on the website of the Rajya Sabha.

An examination of the website by DH showed that a copy of the notifications in English and Hindi were tabled in Rajya Sabha on 25 March, 2021.

Nayak said the reluctance of the union government to be more transparent about its actions while and after blocking content on social and digital media platforms, including the latest action against the BBC documentary film only gives rise to suspicion about its intentions.

"If the Government believes it has an iron-clad case to invoke its powers under the 2021 Rules to block such content, it must make such orders and all materials public. To deny access to such orders when its press releases on the subject contain significant amounts of information such as: the core subject matter of the blocked content, the viewership and subscriber statistics of each platform which hosted the blocked content, can amount to abuse of administrative discretion," he said.

"Even more worrisome is the negligence evidenced by the delay in tabling the 2021 Rules in Parliament. This tabling mechanism is an important measure to ensure that the Government exercises its rule-making power within the four corners of the principal enactment. As a delegatee of Parliament, the Government is answerable to both Houses for the manner of exercise of this power of delegated legislation," he added.