Key Terms & Concepts — UPSC Mains
Section 79(3)(b), IT Act, 2000
"The intermediary-liability provision under which the government can direct platforms to remove or disable content, distinct from Section 69A's dedicated blocking power."
Section 79 of the Information Technology Act, 2000 grants online intermediaries (platforms like GitHub, social media companies, or ISPs) 'safe harbour', legal protection from liability for content uploaded by their users, provided the intermediary observes due diligence. Section 79(3)(b) conditions this protection on the intermediary removing or disabling access to unlawful content upon receiving actual knowledge or a government or court order, read together with Rule 3(1)(d) of the Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code Rules, 2021. This is structurally different from Section 69A of the same Act, which is the IT Act's dedicated content-blocking provision, empowering the Central Government to block public access to information on grounds including sovereignty, defence, security of the state and public order, subject to a review committee process that provides a degree of procedural oversight. Because Section 79(3)(b) lacks an equivalent review-committee safeguard, using it to achieve public-order or security-based blocking outcomes has drawn criticism from digital-rights groups as a less transparent route to the same result 69A is designed to produce with more oversight. This distinction became prominent when India's Indian Cyber Crime Coordination Centre (I4C) used Section 79(3)(b) to direct GitHub to disable repositories hosting the Bluetooth mesh-network app Bitchat during 2026 NEET-UG protests.
A precise, high-yield distinction for GS2/GS3 answers on internet governance: conflating Section 69A and 79(3)(b) is a common and costly examinable error.
- 1 Section 79: grants intermediaries safe harbour from liability for user content
- 2 Section 79(3)(b): conditions safe harbour on compliance with a lawful takedown direction
- 3 Paired with Rule 3(1)(d), Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code Rules, 2021
- 4 Distinct from Section 69A, the IT Act's dedicated blocking provision with a review committee
- 5 79(3)(b) lacks 69A's procedural review safeguard
- 6 Used by I4C in 2026 to direct GitHub to disable Bitchat repositories during civil unrest
- 7 Criticised by digital-rights groups (IFF, SFLC.in) as a less transparent route to public-order blocking
Using Section 79(3)(b) rather than Section 69A to block Bitchat's code repositories meant the order bypassed the review-committee process that would otherwise apply to a public-order-based blocking decision.
