A Sunday sitting of the Supreme Court has become the only check so far on a week in which journalists were detained, phones confiscated and footage deleted, and mobile internet across central Delhi was switched off without public explanation. The order, issued in a contempt petition tied to a habeas corpus case, tells the Union Government and Delhi Police something that should not need saying: internet access in the capital must continue unhindered.
What the Court found
Hearing Shailendra Mani Tripathi v. Govind Mohan on an urgent basis, Justices Joymalya Bagchi and V. Mohana recorded a prima facie case against the alleged contemnors, issued notice, and demanded a counter affidavit and compliance report within days. Counsel told the bench that roughly 7,000 people had been illegally detained in Delhi, and that mobile data had been suspended for twenty-four hours across a four-kilometre radius from late on 9 October. The Union's response, offered orally, was that services had "since been restored" - an assurance the Court did not treat as adequate.
Among the directions recorded, one stands out for its lack of qualification: internet facilities are to function unhindered, full stop. Other directions on movement and transport came with caveats; this one did not. The bench also ordered an end to illegal detention and instructed that journalists, lawyers and other professionals be allowed to work without obstruction.
Why after-the-fact restoration is not accountability
Switching the internet back on after an outage is not the same as following the law that governs when it can be switched off in the first place. Under the framework set out in Anuradha Bhasin v. Union of India and the Telecommunications (Temporary Suspension of Services) Rules, 2024, any suspension order must be published, must record specific reasons, must be reviewed by a designated committee, and must be proportionate and time-limited. None of that appears to have happened in Delhi this week. A suspension imposed quietly and lifted quietly, with no published order and no reasons on record, leaves no trail for courts, journalists or citizens to examine - which is precisely the accountability gap the law was written to close.
Internet shutdowns of this kind do more than inconvenience residents. They cut off the ability to document events as they happen, obstruct journalists from filing reports, and make it harder for families to locate people who have been detained. Seizing reporters' phones and deleting footage compounds the problem: it removes the independent record that shutdowns already make difficult to compile.
What compliance now requires
- Keep internet services in Delhi running, without suspension, throttling or jamming.
- Publish every suspension order from 9 and 10 October, including the reasons recorded and the Review Committee's findings.
- End illegal detentions and guarantee that journalists and lawyers can do their work without interference.
- Return seized phones to the reporters from whom they were taken, and make seizure records public.
Article 144 of the Constitution binds all civil and judicial authorities to act in aid of the Supreme Court. An order compelling the state to keep the internet on, and to stop detaining people unlawfully, is a modest ask by any standard. That it took an emergency hearing and a contempt petition to secure it says a great deal about the gap between constitutional guarantees under Articles 19 and 21 and their observance on the ground. The test now is not the order itself but whether the Union Government and the Delhi Police act on it - in letter and in spirit - before the next deadline arrives.
