Switched Off: Jantar Mantar, Mumbai, and the Unfinished Promise of Anuradha Bhasin

By Kumail Abbas Kazmi

The Trigger Event

The 2026 Delhi Jantar Mantar protests began on 6 June 2026, led by the Cockroach Janta Party (CJP) and student organisations, demanding the resignation of Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan over the NEET paper-leak scandal. The movement gained national attention after environmentalist Sonam Wangchuk's hunger strike at the site, and tensions escalated further following an attack on a police contingent near the protest area. Anticipating a large march toward Parliament, Delhi Police imposed prohibitory orders under Section 163 of the BNSS and shut down several metro stations en route. It was in this charged window — 20 July 2026 — that reports emerged of mobile internet being shut down in and around Jantar Mantar, with no order made public. Around the same time, Mumbai Police separately imposed its own prohibitory order under the Maharashtra Police Act, giving this piece its comparative frame.

What Are Internet Shutdowns?

Internet shutdowns are an absolute restriction placed on the use of internet services due to an order issued by a government body. They may be limited to a specific place and a specific period, or they can extend indefinitely. A shutdown may target mobile internet, wired broadband, or both simultaneously.

The phenomenon has been described in several ways by rights bodies and researchers:

Digital rights advocates define an internet shutdown as “an intentional disruption of internet or electronic communications, rendering them inaccessible or effectively unusable, for a specific population or within a location, often to control the flow of information.”
The Centre for Communications Governance has referred to a shutdown as an “internet kill switch.”
The Digital Empowerment Foundation has called them “digital curfews.”
The Centre for Internet & Society, Bangalore has identified six categories of disruption: national internet, subnational internet, national mobile internet, subnational mobile internet, national app/service, and subnational app/service.

The Legal Architecture Governing Shutdowns in India

Internet shutdowns in India were, until recently, governed by Section 5(2) of the Indian Telegraph Act, 1885, a colonial-era provision never designed for the digital age, which permitted suspension “on the occurrence of any public emergency” or “in the interest of public safety” — vague, undefined phrases that left wide room for arbitrary use. Rules introduced in 2017 under this Act provided some procedural scaffolding but remained vague enough to enable indiscriminate and prolonged suspensions with little public accountability, and it was this very framework that was tested in Anuradha Bhasin. That regime has since been replaced: the Telecommunications Act, 2023 repealed the Telegraph Act, with Section 20(2)(b) now empowering both Central and State governments to suspend telecom services, and the accompanying Telecommunications (Temporary Suspension of Services) Rules, 2024 introduced tighter safeguards on paper — requiring suspension orders to be in writing with recorded reasons, issued by a competent authority (or, in unavoidable circumstances, an officer not below Joint Secretary rank, subject to confirmation within 24 hours), mandating that the authority first assess whether the objective could be met through any less restrictive alternative, requiring the order to specify the exact geographical area covered, and capping suspensions at 15 days while allowing them to be challenged before High Courts under Article 226 or the Supreme Court under Article 32. Yet a Review Committee is only required to assess compliance within five days of issuance — after the suspension has already taken effect — and the rules do not clarify whether orders can be renewed once their term lapses, leaving room for the kind of repeated-order abuse seen in Manipur, where a 142-day shutdown was sustained through successive 5-day orders.

India's Rank Among Internet-Shutdown Countries

According to the report “Rising Repression Meets Global Resistance: Internet Shutdowns in 2025,” published by Access Now and the #KeepItOn coalition, the world recorded 313 internet shutdowns across 52 countries in 2025 — the highest number ever documented since tracking began in 2016. India recorded 65 of these shutdowns, its highest count among the world's democracies, with Myanmar overtaking it for the second consecutive year at 95 incidents. This placed India second globally in 2025, even though 65 was its lowest tally since 2017; shutdowns spread across 12 states and territories, deployed mainly during protests, communal violence, and religious events. Since 2016, India has accounted for 920 of the world's 2,102 recorded shutdowns — the highest cumulative tally of any country, and a statistic that reframes Jantar Mantar not as an aberration but as part of a near-decade-long pattern. Access Now's report also notes a point of institutional irony: India is one of the few countries that legally requires shutdown orders to be published, which makes the undisclosed nature of the Jantar Mantar shutdown a breach of India's own stated legal standard, not merely a general transparency failing.

Section 144 CrPC / Section 163 BNSS: Prohibitory Orders on Assembly

Section 163 of the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita, 2023 (BNSS), which replaced Section 144 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973, empowers a District Magistrate, Sub-Divisional Magistrate, or specially empowered Executive Magistrate to issue urgent orders where immediate prevention or a speedy remedy is required:

“In cases where... there is sufficient ground for proceeding under this section and immediate prevention or speedy remedy is desirable, such Magistrate may, by a written order stating the material facts of the case... direct any person to abstain from a certain act... if such Magistrate considers that such direction is likely to prevent, or tends to prevent, obstruction, annoyance or injury to any person lawfully employed, or danger to human life, health or safety or a disturbance of the public tranquillity, or a riot, or an affray.”

In substance, BNSS 163 is a re-enactment of the old CrPC 144, with the written-reasons requirement made more explicit on the face of the statute — a legislative response to years of judicial criticism of orders passed mechanically or without disclosed reasoning. Delhi Police invoked this provision at Jantar Mantar; Mumbai's order, by contrast, was issued by DCP (Operations) Akbar Pathan under the Maharashtra Police Act — a different statute achieving a similar preventive restriction on assembly, useful for a comparative reading of how states reach for different tools toward the same end.

Case Law: Anuradha Bhasin v. Union of India (10 January 2020)

Following the abrogation of Article 370 in Jammu & Kashmir in August 2019, the government imposed a communications blockade including a complete internet shutdown. Anuradha Bhasin, executive editor of Kashmir Times, petitioned the Supreme Court that this obstructed her ability to publish. The petition, heard alongside one filed by MP Ghulam Nabi Azad, raised five core questions: whether the government could claim exemption from producing orders passed under Section 144 CrPC and the Suspension Rules; whether free speech and trade over the internet fall within Part III of the Constitution; whether the shutdown itself was valid; whether the Section 144 restrictions were valid; and whether the petitioner's press freedom had been violated.

On disclosure, the Court held that a democracy “sworn to transparency and accountability” cannot allow orders restricting fundamental rights to remain secret, invoking Lon Fuller's warning that “there can be no greater legal monstrosity than a secret statute” and James Madison's caution that a government without popular information is “but a prologue to a farce or a tragedy.” The Court placed the burden on the State to proactively produce all relevant orders once a restriction is challenged, unless a specific, affidavit-backed claim of privilege justifies withholding them.

On the substantive right, the Court confined itself to holding that the freedom of speech and expression under Article 19(1)(a), and the right to carry on trade or business under Article 19(1)(g), extend to the medium of the internet — while expressly declining to declare internet access itself a standalone fundamental right. It also held, following its own precedent, that a restriction under Article 19(2) can in appropriate cases amount to a complete prohibition, provided it is not an excessive burden, the State justifies why lesser alternatives were inadequate, and whether it amounts to prohibition is a question of fact for the Court to determine case by case.

The Court's operative directions, at paragraph 152, are the anchor for applying this judgment to any present-day shutdown or prohibitory order:

“(a) The Respondent State/competent authorities are directed to publish all orders in force and any future orders under Section 144, Cr.P.C and for suspension of telecom services, including internet, to enable the affected persons to challenge it before the High Court or appropriate forum.”

“(b) We declare that the freedom of speech and expression and the freedom to practice any profession or carry on any trade, business or occupation over the medium of internet enjoys constitutional protection under Article 19(1)(a) and Article 19(1)(g). The restriction upon such fundamental rights should be in consonance with the mandate under Article 19(2) and (6) of the Constitution, inclusive of the test of proportionality.”

The remaining directions (152(c)–(o)) round out this framework: an internet suspension can never be indefinite and must be proportionate and time-limited; every suspension order is subject to judicial review; the Review Committee must conduct periodic reviews until permanent rules fill that gap; existing orders must be revisited and revoked if unlawful; essential services such as government websites, banking, and hospitals should be restored first even where full connectivity cannot be; Section 144 (now BNSS 163) may be used only for a genuine emergency or apprehension of danger — never to suppress “legitimate expression of opinion or grievance or exercise of any democratic rights”; such orders must state material facts to enable judicial scrutiny, apply the least intrusive measure, and avoid becoming repetitive, since “repetitive orders... would be an abuse of power.”

Applying Anuradha Bhasin to Jantar Mantar and Mumbai

The Supreme Court's declaration in paragraph 152(b) — that restrictions on internet access are restrictions on speech and livelihood, and must therefore clear the same constitutional bar as any other Article 19 restriction, including the test of proportionality — is precisely the standard against which the July 2026 Jantar Mantar shutdown must be measured. Applied here, this means the shutdown could only be justified if the authorities could show a legitimate aim, a rational connection between the shutdown and that aim, that it was the least restrictive alternative available, and that its scale and duration were proportionate to the threat — none of which can be assessed because no order was ever published disclosing the authority, grounds, or duration of the restriction. This is not a peripheral procedural lapse: paragraph 152(a) of the very same judgment separately directs the State to publish all orders under Section 144 CrPC (now BNSS 163) and telecom suspension provisions specifically so that affected persons can challenge them before the High Court — meaning the absence of a published order at Jantar Mantar is a direct, identifiable departure from a binding Supreme Court direction, not merely a lapse in the spirit of the judgment. Mumbai's parallel order under the Maharashtra Police Act was, by contrast, disclosed — issued openly by DCP (Operations) Akbar Pathan, with a defined start and end date (23 July to 6 August) and explicit carve-outs for courts, offices, schools, and normal trade. It illustrates that disclosure and time-bound scope are achievable even under a different statute, which sharpens the criticism of Jantar Mantar's shutdown by comparison rather than excusing it.

Conclusion

Read together, the Jantar Mantar shutdown and the Mumbai prohibitory order expose a persistent gap between what Anuradha Bhasin required in 2020 and what is still practised in 2026. The Telecommunications Act, 2023 and its 2024 Suspension Rules were framed as Parliament's answer to that judgment, yet an undisclosed shutdown riding alongside a BNSS 163 prohibitory order shows how easily the old opacity can resurface under a new statute. The comparison with Mumbai's more transparent, time-bound order suggests the problem is not an absence of legal tools for lawful restriction, but a failure to consistently apply the disclosure and proportionality standards the Supreme Court has already laid down.