In a first, Delhi High Court directs Central government to provide copy of blocking order to website's owner

In a first, the Delhi High court has directed the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) of the Central government to provide a copy of the order blocking a website, to the owner of the website [Tanul Thakur v Union of India and Ors]. .A Division Bench of Justices Manmohan and Dinesh Kumar Sharma directed the MeitY committee to giver the order copy to one Tanul Thakur, the owner and creator of the website ‘Dowry Calculator', which was blocked. The bench also ordered the government to give a post-decisional hearing to Thakur's counsel..The High Court was hearing a petition by Thakur seeking a direction to Centre to restore access to the website.He had argued that his website is a satirical platform which seeks to criticise the practice of dowry demand and arranged marriages and the fact that weddings are often spoken of as markets.“Dowry calculator was launched in 2011 as a satirical comment on the existing state of dowry demand in India. The humorous and ironic nature of the website was evident both from a bare perusal of the website and from a bare perusal of the website, which was dedicated to the “Match-making aunties of India” and the petitioner’s repeated statements about it,” the petitioner had argued..The Internet Freedom Foundation (IFF) which represented Thakur before the High Court, claimed that it is for the first time that the government's blocking order will be disclosed and a hearing will be given to the censored subject.“MeitY has never disclosed its censorship orders and rarely if ever, provided a hearing to the creator whose content is blocked, whether it is websites or tweets or videos. Now, MeitY has been ordered to provide both. This is a major step towards establishing some transparency in government censorship! This opacity allows MeitY to escape any form of accountability when it bans websites or orders your tweets to be deleted or orders your videos to be taken off social media,” the IFF has said..The petition also prayed that Rule 16 of the Information and Technology (Procedure and Safeguards for Blocking for Access of Information by Public) Rules, 2009 be declared unconstitutional insofar as it says that even the persons directly aggrieved by the blocking order are not provided a copy of the order.The petitioner also sought guidelines to ensure that all deliberations and decisions towards exercising powers under Section 69A of the IT Act are in consonance with the 2009 rules so as to ensure that the right to freedom of speech and expression is not unreasonably restrained by the government..Advocates Vrinda Bhandari, Abhinav Sekhri, Tanmay Singh, Anandita Mishra, Krishnesh Bapat, Amala Dasrathi and Natasha Maheshwari appeared for Thakur.Central Government Standing Counsel Gaurang Kanth along with advocates Biji Rajesh and Heena Kochar appeared for the Centre..[Read Order]