In a bizarre acceptance of events, at the second appeal hearing on 14 July 2023, conducted by chief information commissioner (CIC) YK Sinha, regarding the election commission's denial of information pertaining to the blocking of online content on various social media platforms; its public information officer (PIO) was given a clean chit for seeking information from a private agency when there is a public authority in place which should mandatorily have that information.
Further, CIC Sinha himself, in his order, has given a link of an answer to an un-starred question in the Lok Sabha, the information of which was procured from the relevant public authority which is the ministry of electronics and information technology (MeitY), but has patted the central public information officer (CPIO) on his back for approaching a private organisation for third-party information clearance!
RTI applicant Vihar Durve argued that, instead of seeking the consent of third-party information from MeitY, which is the nodal ministry for IT-related matters, the CPIO erroneously sought consent from a private organisation, namely, the Internet and Mobile Association of India (IAMAI).
This was in response to Mr Durve's RTI application filed on 25 April 2022, to the ECI wherein he sought information on the following points along with file notings:
- Furnish me, from the Year 2014 to the Year 2018, details of correspondence, records, information, and emails (with file notings) by the Election Commission of India to a) Twitter (b) Facebook (c) WhatsApp (d) Instagram (E) Telegram (f) any other Social media Platform…
- Furnish me from the Year 2014 to the Year 2018, details of correspondence, records, information, emails (with file notings) received by the Election Commission of India in reply to correspondence, records, information, emails (with file notings) made by the Election Commission of India to a) Twitter (b) Facebook (c) WhatsApp (d) Instagram (E) Telegram (f) any other Social media Platform…
- Furnish me From the Year 2014 to the Year 2018 details of the total amount paid by the Election Commission of India to a)Twitter (b) Facebook (c) WhatsApp (d) Instagram (E) Telegram (f) any other Social media Platform
- Any other relevant details from Year 2014 to 2022 relating to point no 3(1) to (5) herein mentioned in this RTI.
The CPIO of the ECI replied that “Disclosure of any communication between ECI and Social Media platforms would attract Section 11 of the RTI Act, 2005, that is, third-party disclosure. The third party is not in favour and made a submission against the disclosure.” In this case, the third party which was not in favour of making the information public was IAMAI. Obviously. Why should it reply when the Central government has MeitY?
Mr Sinha, in his order, observed that Mr Durve, besides objecting to reaching out to the private agency, also stated that “the issues raised by him pertain to the larger public interest and were not addressed appropriately as the information was not denied quoting any of the exemptions listed u/s 8 (1) of the RTI Act, 2005.”
CPIOs Rakesh Kumar Singh and Abhishek reiterated that they had done no wrong in seeking third-party permission from IAMAI as it “is representing the digital services industry and includes Twitter India and Meta India as its members...''
On being queried by CIC Sinha if statistical information regarding the takedown notices issued to social media intermediaries is available on the website of ECI, Mr Singh replied in the negative.
CIC Sinha, in his order, surprisingly agreed with the stand taken by the CPIO of approaching the private agency IAMA, “instead of approaching each social media intermediary separately as the same will result in the disproportionate diversion of resources of the public authority and could have resulted in complexities and anomalies in the replies provided resulting in multiple proceedings.” Time and again, we have seen compassion for CPIOs in several orders of the CICs.
Mr Sinha stated that “As per the provisions of the RTI Act, 2005, information has been provided by the Respondent as personal information of third parties exempted u/s 8 (1) (j) cannot be disclosed to information seekers and no larger public interest warranting its disclosure has been justified by the Appellant.
“Furthermore, as per the provisions of the Act, the PIO is only obliged to disclose such information that is held and available in the records of the public authority.”
The information that Mr Durve wanted is hidden in this Lok Sabha Q&A:
1064. Shri Karti P Chidambaram:
Will the Minister of Electronics and Information Technology be pleased to state:
(a) the total number of directions issued under Rule 8(6) of the Information Technology (IT) Rules, 2009, to block access to online content during the last five financial years, including the provisional data for the current year;
(b) the total number of hearings conducted by the Committee for examination of requests under Rule 8(1) of the IT Rules, 2009, during the said period;
(c) the total number of blocking orders issued by the Ministry under Rule 9(2) of the IT Rules, 2009, during the said period;
(d) the total number of websites, social media handles and apps blocked under Section 69A of the IT Act, 2000, during the said period; and
(e) whether any intermediaries have not complied with takedown orders and if so, the total number of such intermediaries that have been punished under section 69A(3) during the said period?
ANSWER
Minister of state for electronics and information technology
(Shri Rajeev Chandrasekhar)
(a) to (d): Under Rule 8(6) and Rule 9(2) of the Information Technology (Procedure and Safeguards for Blocking for Access of Information for Public) Rules, 2009, the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) has issued blocking directions to various intermediaries and government agencies to block access of information by public. Such directions are issued for blocking a total of 2799, 3635, 9849, 6096 and 6775 URLs during the year 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021 and 2022 respectively.
These include social media URLs, accounts, channels, pages, apps, webpages, websites etc. Further, the Committee constituted under Rule 7 of the aforesaid Rules has conducted 18, 40, 70, 39 and 53 number of meetings for hearing and examination during the year 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021 and 2022 respectively. (e): Currently all intermediaries are in compliance to all the directions issued by MeitY under section 69A of the Information Technology Act, 2000.
At the end of it, CIC Sinha stretched out his hand to help RTI applicant Vihar Durve. He actually gave a link in his order of the answer to the Lok Sabha un-starred question No 1064 dated 8 February 2023 regarding “Blocking of Online Content”. This contained the statistical information regarding the number of blocking directions issued by MeitY to various intermediaries and government agencies to block access to information by the public under Rule 8 (6) and 9 (2) of the information technology (procedure and safeguards for blocking for access of information for public) rules, 2009 and compliance of Section 69A of the IT Act, 2000 which is available in the public domain on the weblink
https://pqals.nic.in/annex/1711/AU1064.pdf.
What is the Internet and Mobile Association of India (IAMAI)?
Established in 2004, the Internet and Mobile Association of India (IAMAI) is a not-for-profit industry body and the country's only organisation representing the digital services industry with over 500 Indian and multinational corporations as its members, which include established companies in diverse sectors of the digital ecosystem, as well as start-ups. Its mandate is to expand and enhance the online and mobile value-added services sectors. It is dedicated to presenting a unified voice of the businesses it represents to the government, investors, consumers and other stakeholders. IAMAI represents varied sectors such as digital advertising, digital entertainment, traveltech, online gaming, digital payments, fintech, digital commerce, edtech, healthtech, agritech, big data, ML, AI & IoT, AR/ VR, logistics-tech and so on.
Mr Durve said he was highly disappointed with the 'irrelevant' decision of the CIC. That's because, if the ECI could provide information to Parliament, why couldn’t it provide the same to the RTI applicant?
(Vinita Deshmukh is consulting editor of Moneylife. She is also the convener of the Pune Metro Jagruti Abhiyaan. She is the recipient of prestigious awards like the Statesman Award for Rural Reporting, which she won twice in 1998 and 2005 and the Chameli Devi Jain Award for outstanding media person for her investigation series on Dow Chemicals. She co-authored the book “To The Last Bullet - The Inspiring Story of A Braveheart - Ashok Kamte” with Vinita Kamte and is the author of “The Mighty Fall”.)
