Biju Chacko [2011-12-08 10:01]: > What with the Kapil Sibal brouhaha, I thought I'd better find out more > about what rights I actually have. I do know that freedom of speech in > India is not absolute and has constitutional limits. Could someone > point me to some material that could help me understand it better.
From Indian Kanoon: <http://goo.gl/em1Zf> Reading a recent(ish) Supreme Court judgment on free speech: <http://indiankanoon.org/doc/561137/> Some (good) standard books on the Constitution are those by M.P. Jain, D.D. Basu, Arvind Datar. For opinionated and incisive (and a bit dated) critique one should turn to Seervai. Dr. Rajeev Dhavan has publish good collection of essays called 'Publish and Be Damned: Censorship and Intolerance in India'. Sarai and the Alternative Law Forum collated some good material for their 'Fearless Speech' project. > A quick google left me fairly confused because, on the face of it, a lot > of government action (on Dam 999 or on Social Networking censorship, > for example) seem completely unconstitutional. All but one of the past 5-6 book banning cases to have gone to the Bombay High Court have resulted in the ban being overturned. Additionally, we at the Centre for Internet and Society believe that the current proposal (which seems to have morphed greatly from Tuesday's press conference to yesterday's Karan Thapar interview) _is_ unconstitutional, as are the Intermediary Guideline Rules in effect since April 11, 2011. Efforts are under way to have them rejected by Parliament, and if that doesn't work, by a High Court. See: * Full version of my op-ed on Mr. Sibal's statements in Indian Express, bringing up constitutional issues: <http://goo.gl/ewzik> * Chilling Effects of the Intermediary Guideline Rules: <http://goo.gl/JUiis> * Free Speech Problems with Intermediary Guideline Rules in non-legalese: <http://goo.gl/PfHej> * Short Note on IT Amendment Act, 2008, with chunk on free speech: <http://goo.gl/Eqc4k> CIS also has a host of material looking at the constitutionality (generally from a free speech perspective) of the different Rules issued under the IT Act since 2009.
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