Section 69A of the IT Act was upheld in *Shreya Singhal* because of its procedural safeguards. Examine whether current blocking practice honours those safeguards.

In Shreya Singhal v. Union of India (2015), the Supreme Court struck down Section 66A but upheld Section 69A as "narrowly drawn". Blocking under it requires written reasons, a hearing and committee review [1]. Current practice keeps these safeguards on paper but weakens them in operation.

Safeguards honoured

• Reasoned orders: A Designated Officer of at least Joint Secretary rank issues blocking directions. An inter-ministerial committee first examines each request [2].
• Periodic review: A Review Committee meets at least once every two months to test orders against Section 69A(1) [2].
• Limited grounds: Blocking is confined to Article 19(2) grounds such as sovereignty, security and public order [1].

Safeguards diluted

• Hearing optional: Rule 8 makes notice to the content originator discretionary. The hearing that Shreya Singhal relied on may therefore never take place [2].
• Secrecy: Rule 16 requires strict confidentiality. Users rarely see the order they would need to challenge in court [2].
• Scale without scrutiny: URLs blocked rose from 6,096 (2021) to 12,483 (2023). Parliament receives only these totals, not the grounds or the requesting agencies [3].
• Emergency route: Rule 9 permits blocking first and review later. Time-bound speech, such as a protest call, loses its value before any hearing [2].
• Illustration: In the "Bring Back Ballot" case (October 2026), a handle advocating paper ballots was withheld in India on the day of a Jantar Mantar protest. The petitioners do not know which provision was used, or whether the Centre or Meta acted [4].
• Proportionality gap: ADR v. ECI (2024) rejected a return to paper ballots [5]. Rejecting a policy does not make advocating it unlawful, because Shreya Singhal protects advocacy that stops short of incitement [1].

Way forward

• Default notice to identifiable originators, with exceptions only where reasons are recorded.
• Amend Rule 16 so platforms can tell users the provision and the authority behind a block.
• Publish blocking data broken down by ground and by agency.
• Add an independent member to the Review Committee.

Section 69A remains constitutionally sound, but secrecy and optional notice have hollowed out the safeguards that justified it. Restoring notice, transparency and independent review would protect public order while honouring Article 19(1)(a) and the right to an effective remedy. That is the balance Shreya Singhal struck.