Discuss the constitutional and procedural concerns raised by issuing content takedown orders under Section 79(3)(b) of the IT Act through the Sahyog portal, rather than under Section 69A.

The IT Act, 2000 offers two routes to take content down. Section 69A is a blocking power with built-in safeguards. Section 79 is a safe-harbour clause that protects platforms from liability for users' posts [1]. The Sahyog portal, run by MHA's I4C, sends notices under Section 79(3)(b) [3]. This makes a liability condition do the work of a blocking power, without the safeguards that come with blocking.

Constitutional concerns

• Article 19(2) test skipped: Shreya Singhal (2015) upheld 69A only because it is narrowly drawn: blocking needs the Centre to record that it is necessary on Article 19(2) grounds, and a Review Committee checks each order [2]. A Sahyog notice has no such filter.
• Read-down diluted: the same judgment limited 79(3)(b) to a court order or government notification linked to Article 19(2) [2]. Notices that many agencies issue directly stretch that limit.
• Rights gap: the Karnataka HC held that X, as a foreign company, cannot claim Article 19 [4]. The platform sees the notice but cannot defend free speech. The citizen has the right to free speech but never sees the notice.
• Proportionality (Puttaswamy, 2017) cannot be tested when no reasoned order exists.

Procedural concerns

• No reasoned order and no hearing: users are usually told only of "a legal request", so they have nothing concrete to challenge.
• Spread-out authority: I4C is the designated agency, but notices come from many ministries, states and police forces [3]. This weakens record-keeping and accountability.
• "Notice" acts as an order: a platform that ignores a notice risks losing safe harbour [1]. So it over-complies instead of using its own judgment.
• Volume: the very high number of notices rules out careful individual review.

The government's case

• Sahyog speeds up action against fraud and malware. I4C has used it to geo-block malicious servers [5].
• The Karnataka HC called it an "instrument of public good" under 79(3)(b) and Rule 3(1)(d) [4].

Sahyog meets a real need for speed against cybercrime, but speed calls for a fast process that keeps records, not one with none. The way forward:

• Bring urgent notices within a time-bound fast track under 69A.
• Publish data on notices, broken down by agency and legal ground, following Anuradha Bhasin (2020).
• Require platforms to tell users which agency asked and under which provision.

These steps would keep the constitutional promise of Shreya Singhal that any restriction on speech is reasoned, reviewable and proportionate.