Why is Bloggernews.net still blocked in India?
It is difficult to understand why this site
bloggernews.net remains blocked in India. Some time back one article
written by me on this site was sought to be blocked with a Court order.
It was related to a dispute between a company called E2labs in India and
the onwers of Zone-H.org. E2Labs had filed a defamation suit in a Court
in Delhi and asked for an interim order to block the URL. Accordingly an
order was made to block the specific URL http://www.bloggernews.net/124029
The defendant in this case namely Mr Roberto Preotoni did not defend his
case in the Court and the ex-parte interim order remained unchallenged.
However at that time the blockade was only on the specific URL and the
rest of the site was available. Since then the site is off and on under
blockade for reasons not known.
When I observed that Tata Docomo continued to block the site while other
ISPs did not block it, I raised a query with the Tata Docomo officials.
After some time the site started working. Now for the last one week the
site again is not accessible through some of ISPs in India. Reason is
not known.
It is possible that the blockade is due to technical inefficiency of the
ISPs who instead of blocking a specific URL might have blocked the
entire site.
If this is not the case, either some other Court or the GOI might have
ordered blocking of the site through a separate order which we donot
know.
I would urge the honorable Delhi High Court to review its order since
the order has become redundant. If the Court had read through the
article which was ordered to be blocked they would have realized that
there is no reason why the URL was to be blocked. I suppose the Court
should not stand on formalities that some citizen should raise the issue
before them for a review. The Court should review its own order and take
a reasoned decision.
The complainant is not interested in a review since
his prayer for blocking zone-h.org has been answered and so also the
prayer for blocking bloggernews.net article. I however feel that the
blocking of the bloggernews.net might not have been due to a Court order
but due to a representation to MCIT that it is related to the Court
proceedings. The CERT at that time might have acted in haste and order
the blocking of the order.
Any blocking of websites by a Government order needs to be automatically
reviewed. I request the CERT-In to publicly announce why the site
bloggernes.net remains blocked and What is the national interest that is
being served by the blocking?
If the blocking is not authorised by GOI, each of the ISPs who have
caused the blocking are liable for "Denial of Access" and "Diminishing
the Utility of a computer resource" which are offences under Section 66
of ITA 2008. The CEOs of the ISPs and the CTOs are liable for
imprisonment. If the blocking is unauthorized under Sec 69/69A, there
could also be punishment under this section.
It would be interesting for the readers to make a search of
bloggernews.net for the keyword "India" and identify which article could
be the one which has offended the GOI.
I would be happy to receive the views of the readers.
Naavi
July 13, 2011
Related
report in DH :
Related Report in HT
Comments are Welcome at
naavi@vsnl.com
