While upholding the Central government’s decision to temporarily block Telegram, the Delhi High Court on Friday ruled that the government can block access to an entire application or a platform under Section 69A of the Information Technology Act, 2000 (IT Act).
The provision lays down the procedure for blocking public access to any “information” through any computer resource in the interests of national security, sovereignty, public order, or related concerns, following prescribed procedures and recorded reasons.
Intermediaries that fail to comply with such blocking orders can face up to 7 years’ imprisonment and a fine.
Justice Tejas Karia said that there is no reason to exclude the application or a platform from the ambit of expression “information” contained in Section 2(1)(v) of the IT Act.
The breadth of the said definition indicates that the expression “information” is required to be construed expansively. A restrictive construction, confining the expression only to individual user accounts, channels, images, posts, files or messages, would unduly narrow the scope of Section 69A and may render the provision otiose. The legislative intent, therefore, appears to be to confer a broad and technologically neutral meaning upon the expression “information”,” the Court said.
It also referred to the definition of “computer resource” and said that it is evident that the information generated, transmitted, received, stored, or hosted to the software-based infrastructure falls within the ambit of Section 69A of the IT Act.
“An application or platform performs logical, arithmetic and memory functions through electronic, magnetic or optical impulses,
