Internet Shutdowns in India: Legal Framework, Supreme Court Guidelines and Fundamental Rights

Internet Shutdown During the 'Chalo Sansad' Protest in Delhi

Mobile internet services were suspended in parts of Central Delhi on 20 July 2026, coinciding with the 'Chalo Sansad' march organised by the Cockroach Janta Party on the opening day of Parliament's Monsoon Session. Thousands of students and young people had gathered near Jantar Mantar to press their demand for the resignation of the Union Education Minister following repeated examination paper leaks connected to NEET, and the disruption reignited a long-standing debate over the legal architecture governing internet shutdowns in India and their compatibility with fundamental rights.

What Constitutes an Internet Shutdown

The web rights body Access Now defines an internet shutdown as an intentional disruption of internet or electronic communications that renders them inaccessible or effectively unusable for a specific population or location, generally deployed to control the flow of information. Such shutdowns take several forms: complete network blackouts, deliberate throttling of speeds, blocking of specific platforms, and mobile-only restrictions that leave broadband connections untouched. According to the International Federation of Journalists, these measures are most often invoked around large political gatherings, anticipated peaceful or violent protests, religious congregations, and public examinations where authorities seek to prevent malpractice.

The Legal Framework, Old and New

Shutdowns in India were historically ordered under Section 5(2) of the Indian Telegraph Act, 1885, read with the Temporary Suspension of Telecom Services (Public Emergency or Public Safety) Rules, 2017. This has since been replaced by Section 20 of the Telecommunications Act, 2023, and the Telecommunications (Temporary Suspension of Services) Rules, 2024. Under Section 20(2)(b) of the 2023 Act, services may be suspended only on the occurrence of a public emergency or in the interest of public safety, for reasons recorded in writing.

A protest, by itself, is not a lawful ground for suspending internet services.

The newer framework imposes firmer procedural discipline: orders must be reasoned and published, confined in area and duration, issued by a competent authority, and preceded by consideration of whether less restrictive measures would suffice. No suspension may remain in force beyond fifteen days. Yet a review by the Digital Defenders Network found that several state shutdown orders issued since late 2024 continued to invoke the outdated 1885 Act and 2017 Rules — the Uttar Pradesh Home Department's order suspending services in Bareilly on 2 October 2025 being one such instance — effectively bypassing the safeguards the newer rules were designed to introduce.

The Delhi Shutdown in Practice

In the Chalo Sansad case, the Ministry of Home Affairs reportedly imposed the suspension across 150 cell sites under Section 20(2)(b) of the 2023 Act read with the 2024 Rules, though telecom operators confirmed receiving instructions before any official order was made public. Services were restored by evening. Advocacy groups, including the Internet Freedom Foundation, pointed to the absence of a published suspension order as a direct departure from the procedural transparency the 2024 framework requires, and noted that permission for the march itself had been refused with prohibitory orders imposed separately under Section 163 of the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita, 2023.

The Anuradha Bhasin Precedent

The Supreme Court's ruling in Anuradha Bhasin v. Union of India (2020) remains the constitutional anchor for this entire debate. The Court held that access to the internet is intimately tied to the freedoms guaranteed under Article 19(1)(a) — speech and expression — and Article 19(1)(g) — trade and profession. It further laid down that any shutdown must be backed by law, pursue a legitimate objective, remain necessary and proportionate, constitute the least restrictive option available, stay limited in scope and duration, carry detailed published reasons, and be subject to review by a competent committee.

Complete broad suspension of telecom services, be it the internet or otherwise, must be considered by the State only if "necessary" and "unavoidable."

India's Shutdown Record

India continues to top global rankings on this metric. A #KeepItOn coalition report released in March 2026 recorded 65 internet shutdowns in India during 2025 — the highest of any democracy in the world — accounting for 920 of the 2,102 shutdowns documented globally since 2016, with roughly 24 more recorded in 2026 so far. Within this record, Jammu & Kashmir accounts for the highest cumulative count at around 449 shutdowns since 2012, followed by Rajasthan at 115 and Manipur at 62, the latter having witnessed a single shutdown that ran for over two hundred days in 2023.

Legal Recourse and Institutional Gaps

A shutdown order can be challenged before a High Court under Article 226 or the Supreme Court under Article 32, with courts empowered to examine whether the order was lawful, issued by a competent authority, proportionate, properly limited in scope, and supported by valid reasons. Indefinite suspensions are impermissible, and the government is obligated to publish orders in a form capable of judicial scrutiny — an obligation the Chalo Sansad episode suggests is still honoured unevenly in practice.

Way Forward

Strengthening this framework calls for parallel movement across several fronts. On the legislative side, strict compliance with the 2023 Act and 2024 Rules must replace continued reliance on the outdated Telegraph Act, alongside clearer statutory criteria for what constitutes a public emergency and a mechanism for automatic judicial review of every shutdown order. Institutionally, the review committee process needs genuine teeth, shutdown orders require timely and consistent publication, and a central public database would allow both citizens and courts to track patterns over time. On policy, authorities should be pushed toward less restrictive alternatives such as targeted platform blocking rather than blanket suspensions, advance notice wherever feasible, and explicit consideration of the cumulative harm shutdowns impose on affected populations. Finally, regular reporting to Parliament, public consultation on the framework, and active civil society engagement would inject the transparency that the current system still lacks.

Conclusion

The Chalo Sansad shutdown is a reminder that updating the statute book is not, by itself, a guarantee of restraint. Five years after Anuradha Bhasin set out a rigorous proportionality standard, and nearly two years after the Telecommunications Act, 2023 codified firmer procedural safeguards, unpublished orders and continued invocation of colonial-era provisions show that the gap between legal design and administrative practice remains wide. Closing that gap will require not merely sharper rules but consistent institutional will to apply them — treating internet access as the constitutional entitlement the courts have already recognised it to be, rather than an administrative convenience to be switched off at the first sign of dissent.