From 10 p.m. on 9 October to 10 p.m. on 10 October 2026, mobile internet was suspended within about 4 km of Raisina Hill in central Delhi. The protest it targeted was against Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar. In an affidavit reported on 14 October, the Union Home Secretary called the suspension a "proportionate measure". The Centre also asked the Supreme Court to modify its order so that suspensions remain possible when necessary. The affidavit is the government's formal answer to a contempt petition, so the argument has to be tested on its merits.
The strongest case for the Centre
The government's argument is not frivolous. According to LiveLaw's report on the affidavit, the Home Secretary says Delhi Police asked for the suspension. The protest had been called without permission, and the police cited their "recent experience" on 20 July 2026. The affidavit stresses that only cellular internet was cut. Wi-Fi and broadband stayed up, the order lasted one day, and the area was bounded. A court that has demanded narrow, time-limited measures could reasonably see that as the least restrictive form of a shutdown. Police do have a legitimate interest in preventing crowd crushes and disorder around the seat of government. In their view, rumour spreading over mobile networks makes that harder.
The affidavit also includes an unconditional apology and denies wilful disobedience of the Court's directions. The Court issued notices on 11 October to the Home Secretary, the Delhi Police Commissioner and the Delhi Metro chair. The IANS report says the earlier directions concerned transport: no blanket ban on Metro or rail services entering the capital. The reports I reviewed do not quote the Court's wording on internet services. Whether the shutdown breached any order is a question for the bench. This article does not assume the answer.
Why 'proportionate' is a claim, not a conclusion
India has a test for this. In Anuradha Bhasin v. Union of India, decided on 10 January 2020, the Supreme Court held that internet restrictions must pursue a legitimate aim and be necessary. Authorities must also consider less intrusive alternatives, and the restriction must be open to judicial review. Columbia University's Global Freedom of Expression summary records that the Court called a complete suspension of telecom services a drastic measure, permissible only if "necessary" and "unavoidable". It also held that orders must be published and that indefinite suspensions are impermissible.
Judged against that test, the affidavit as reported establishes the easy parts: a stated purpose, a duration and a geographic limit. It does not show the hard part, which is why less intrusive tools would not have worked. Targeted policing of a specific crowd, rate-limiting of specific platforms and prosecution of people who incite violence are all alternatives. A police reference to a prior event on 20 July tells us what officers feared. It does not tell us why a 4 km mobile blackout was unavoidable for this event.
A 4 km radius around Raisina Hill is also not a small area. It covers a dense central district where people use mobile data for payments, ride-hailing, navigation, work and emergency contact. The reports say Wi-Fi and broadband stayed on, but that only helps people who happen to be near a fixed connection. A protest in a political district is also precisely the situation where a shutdown's costs to speech and to the press are highest. Restricting mobile data stops people from documenting what the state does, as well as from organising.
The safeguards that exist, and the one that is missing
India's rulebook has been rewritten since Bhasin. PRS India's analysis of the 2024 draft telecom rules describes the changes the draft proposed. Suspension orders had to specify the geographic area and duration. Orders issued by a Joint Secretary-level officer needed Home Secretary confirmation within 24 hours. Review committees gained the power to set orders aside, and orders had to be published. PRS's rules review lists the same committee compositions. At the central level these were the Cabinet Secretary and the Legal Affairs and Telecom Secretaries.
Those are real improvements, and they match what Bhasin asked for. Their value depends on what happens in practice. For the Raisina Hill order, the reports I reviewed do not say whether the order was published with reasons, or what the review committee found. If an order of this kind is not published, citizens and courts cannot test its necessity, and the safeguard exists only on paper. The PRS analysis also noted that the draft did not require committee findings to be published.
Why a standing carve-out is the wrong remedy
The Centre asks the Court to modify its order so suspensions stay available, provided they follow the law and its safeguards. As reported, that request restates what the law already says. Shutdowns have always been available to the government when lawful. The risk is in asking the Court to bless a general permission in place of a case-by-case showing. Courts are poorly placed to pre-approve something whose legality turns on facts.
India's record shows why this matters. According to MediaNama's coverage of the Access Now #KeepItOn report, India recorded 84 shutdowns in 2024, second in the world to Myanmar's 85. Of those, 41 were linked to protests. When protests are the most common trigger, shutdowns can become a routine crowd-management tool. They then stop being the exceptional measure of last resort that Bhasin described.
What the Court should require
- Publish the order and its reasons, including the specific facts and the alternatives considered.
- Publish the review committee's findings within a short, fixed period, so the record can be tested in court.
- Require evidence of necessity for the specific event. A reference to a past event should not substitute for it.
- Keep any modification narrow. It should restate that each suspension must meet the Bhasin test. It should not create a general permission.
A pro-innovation, pro-speech approach does not deny that officials sometimes face hard public-order calls. It insists that the state show its work, because a shutdown makes everyone in range pay a cost for a risk that only some people create.