On 14 October 2026, Justice Amit Mahajan of the Delhi High Court issued notice to the National Internet Exchange of India (NIXI), MeitY, the Ministry of Consumer Affairs and GoDaddy in a petition over chalosansad.in. The site, a single page documenting the 20 July 2026 "Chalo Sansad" march against the NEET-UG paper leak, was registered on 19 July and put on "serverHold" by the .IN registry on 22 July. The next hearing is on 27 January 2027. The court has decided nothing yet. But the facts as the petitioner and the Internet Freedom Foundation (IFF) describe them, and as MediaNama reports them, raise a question that matters for every .IN registrant: what process does the registry owe before it takes a site off the internet?
The strongest case for the registry
NIXI has a real problem to solve. Domain registries are a frequent target of impersonation and phishing, and a name like "sansad" (Parliament) invites fraudulent use that could pass as official. A registry that waited for a court order before acting on every suspicious name would be slow, and a registry that never held a name pending verification would be a soft target. NIXI's published anti-abuse page says it may deny, cancel, transfer or place a domain on "registry lock, hold, or similar status" at its discretion to protect registry integrity, comply with law, or correct registration errors. Precautionary holds are legitimate tools.
What happened here
Per IFF's account of the case, no notice, written order or hearing preceded the hold, and the registry's stated reason changed four times:
- 22 July: "Invalid WHOIS". The owner corrected his contact details that evening, and NIXI later confirmed KYC verification was complete.
- 24 July: the domain "contains a critical keyword", with no keyword or rule named.
- 14 August: "Sansad" falls under "Constitutional Authorities" in Clause 3.4.6 of the 2004 .IN Policy Framework, described as a routine system-generated check.
- 2 September: the Emblems and Names (Prevention of Improper Use) Act, 1950, relying on a legal opinion dated 29 August that NIXI has not disclosed.
MediaNama reports that NIXI accepted Clause 3.4.6 applied before registration opened and that the domain was not on a reserved list. On 18 September, NIXI said it did not claim powers under the Emblems Act and acted under its contractual terms, and that it would restore the domain only if the owner produced Central Government permission. IFF also says at least twelve other privately registered .IN domains using "sansad" were not held. That is the petitioner's allegation, not a finding, and NIXI's own filed response is not yet public.
Why the shifting rationale is the real issue
A suspension that is justified only after the fact, and differently each time, is not a rule being applied; it is a decision looking for a rule. That matters for three reasons.
First, the Emblems Act, as described in the petition, is aimed at use of listed names and emblems for "trade, business, calling or profession". The petitioner's relief includes a declaration that his site is no such use. By the owner's account, the page carried no advertising, collected no data, sold nothing and sought no funds. A statute about commercial misuse is a poor fit for a non-commercial page documenting a public protest, and the Act itself is the document the court will read.
Second, the contractual route has no visible limits. NIXI's anti-abuse page, as fetched, states broad discretion and says nothing on prior notice or a hearing. Meanwhile IFF reports that NIXI's Anti-Abuse Policy (version 1.10, December 2022) says courts and competent government authorities decide whether content is illegal and that the registry does not do so on its own. Both positions cannot do the work NIXI needs them to do. If the registry does not judge legality, a "critical keyword" screen that takes a site offline is a legality judgment by another name.
Third, the remedy is disproportionate. A hold removes the domain from the .IN zone, so the whole site stops resolving, not one disputed statement. Blocking orders under Section 69A of the IT Act come with a published procedure and written reasons. A registry hold, on these facts, came with neither. The burden then flipped: the owner had to produce permission from the Central Government to get his site back, rather than the registry having to justify taking it down.
A proportionate fix
None of this requires banning precautionary holds. A workable rule has four parts:
- Name the rule. Any hold must cite a specific clause or legal provision at the time it is imposed.
- Notify and allow reply. Give the registrant and registrar written reasons and a short window to respond, with an expedited path for obviously non-commercial, verifiable sites.
- Time-limit the hold. A verification hold should lapse or be reviewed within days, not months.
- Publish counts. Report suspensions by ground and outcome, so that sensitive-keyword screens can be audited.
These costs are small against the harm. A reserved-name list exists to stop impersonation; a site that states it is unaffiliated with any party, and links every claim to a published source, is the opposite of impersonation. A screen that cannot tell the difference will be applied inconsistently, which is what the twelve unheld "sansad" domains, if the petitioner's allegation is borne out, would indicate.
What to watch on 27 January
The court may answer narrow questions: whether NIXI is a "competent authority" under the Emblems Act, and whether the suspension record and legal opinion must be disclosed. The wider question is whether India's domain infrastructure will operate on published procedure or on discretion. A registry that polices a protest site's name without notice sets a precedent that reaches well beyond one domain, because every .IN registrant is exposed to the same unwritten process.