(a) "There is, in recent years, a feeling which is not without any foundation that 'public interest litigation' is now tending to…

(a) Public Interest Litigation (PIL) relaxed locus standi and procedural formalities under Articles 32 and 226 so that courts could reach people who were too poor, too weak or too invisible to approach them. See Hussainara Khatoon (1979), S.P. Gupta v. Union of India (1981), Bandhua Mukti Morcha (1984) and the M.C. Mehta cases. Its achievements are real: the release of undertrials, the end of bonded labour, environmental jurisprudence, and the Vishaka guidelines.

Why the feeling "is not without foundation"

Publicity and private interest:

• petitions filed for media attention;
• petitions by business rivals disguised as public causes (Kalyaneshwari v. Union of India (2011), where a PIL against asbestos was filed at the instance of rival manufacturers and costs were imposed);
• blackmail petitions (Dattaraj Nathuji Thaware v. State of Maharashtra (2005));
• politically motivated petitions (Tehseen Poonawalla v. Union of India (2018), which dismissed the PIL on Judge Loya's death as an abuse).

Counter-productive effects:

• docket explosion delays ordinary litigants and undertrials, the very people PIL was meant to help;
• judicial overreach into policy and administration, for example the highway liquor ban (State of T.N. v. K. Balu (2016)), which strains the separation of powers and democratic accountability;
• orders that cannot be implemented, and "continuing mandamus" without expertise;
• service matters and personal grievances dressed up as PILs.

The Court's corrective response

• Janata Dal v. H.S. Chowdhary (1992): "busybodies" and meddlesome interlopers have no standing.
• Ashok Kumar Pandey v. State of W.B. (2004) and Holicow Pictures v. Prem Chandra Mishra (2007): the Court warned against personal-interest PILs.

***State of Uttaranchal v. Balwant Singh Chaufal* (2010)** laid down guidelines:

• encourage genuine PILs and discourage those filed for extraneous considerations;
• frame rules for PILs;
• verify the petitioner's credentials and the correctness of the contents;
• ensure there is substantial public interest;
• give priority to genuine grievances;
• impose exemplary costs on frivolous petitions.

Institutional screening: the Supreme Court's PIL Guidelines (1988, revised 2003) and Order XXXVIII of the Supreme Court Rules, 2013 provide for screening. In the 2003 guidelines, service matters are excluded as a category, among others.

Critical assessment: the criticism is justified in part. Misuse and overreach have diluted PIL's credibility. The remedy is discipline, not abolition:

• rigorous scrutiny at admission;
• costs for abuse;
• deference on policy questions;
• time-bound, monitored remedies;
• continued openness to genuine claims by the voiceless.

PIL remains essential for accountability on the environment, custodial justice and welfare delivery.

(b) Safe harbour (Section 79, IT Act, 2000, as substituted in 2008). An intermediary is not liable for any third-party information, data or communication link that it makes available or hosts, if:

• its function is limited to providing access to a communication system over which such information is transmitted or temporarily stored or hosted (Section 79(2)(a));
• it does not initiate the transmission, select the receiver, or select or modify the information (Section 79(2)(b));
• it observes due diligence and any guidelines prescribed by the Central Government (Section 79(2)(c)).

The protection is lost if the intermediary conspired, abetted or induced the unlawful act, or if, on receiving actual knowledge or a government notification, it fails to expeditiously remove or disable access (Section 79(3)).

Relevance The provision was a response to Avnish Bajaj v. State (the Bazee.com case, 2004–08), where the CEO of a platform was prosecuted over a listing uploaded by a user. Without safe harbour, platforms would have to pre-screen billions of posts, which would stifle innovation and speech. The provision mirrors Section 230 of the US law and the EU e-Commerce Directive.

• ***Shreya Singhal v. Union of India* (2015) struck down Section 66A. It read down Section 79(3)(b) so that "actual knowledge" means a court order or a government notification** on Article 19(2) grounds, not private complaints.
• ***Myspace v. Super Cassettes* (Delhi HC, 2016) held that intermediaries need specific knowledge before losing protection. *Christian Louboutin v. Nakul Bajaj* (Delhi HC, 2018)** held that an "active" platform that curates and promotes goods loses safe harbour.

Accountability measures

IT (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021:

• due diligence and grievance officers;
• for significant social media intermediaries, a Chief Compliance Officer and a resident nodal officer;
• identification of the "first originator" of messages (Rule 4(2)), which is under challenge by WhatsApp;
• a 2023 amendment provided for a government "fact-check unit", which the Bombay High Court struck down (Kunal Kamra v. Union of India, 2024).

Blocking and takedown:

• blocking orders under Section 69A (Shreya Singhal upheld the procedure);
• notices under Section 79(3)(b) through the "Sahyog" portal, which the Karnataka High Court upheld in 2025 (X Corp v. Union of India).

The need for liability The case for greater intermediary liability rests on:

• deepfakes and AI-generated content;
• viral misinformation leading to lynchings;
• child sexual abuse material;
• hate speech;
• the algorithmic amplification by platforms, which are no longer passive conduits.

Models include the EU Digital Services Act (2022), which imposes risk-assessment duties on very large platforms, and the proposed Digital India Act.

Balance Liability should be proportionate and procedural:

• notice-and-takedown with due process and appeal;
• transparency reports;
• duty-of-care obligations scaled to the size of the platform;
• no general monitoring obligation, since strict liability would lead to over-removal and private censorship, contrary to Shreya Singhal.

The safe harbour should remain, but conditional on responsible conduct.

(c) The rule. Section 7(9) of the RTI Act, 2005 provides that information shall ordinarily be provided in the form in which it is sought, unless providing it in that form:

• would disproportionately divert the resources of the public authority; or
• would be detrimental to the safety or preservation of the record in question.

"Right to information" includes inspection of work, documents and records; taking notes, extracts or certified copies; taking certified samples of material; and obtaining information in electronic form (Section 2(j)).

Illustrations of the exceptions

• Disproportionate diversion of resources: an applicant asks for photocopies of every file noting of a department over 20 years. The PIO may offer inspection instead, and the applicant can choose the pages to be copied.
• Safety or preservation of the record: fragile archival records, old maps or brittle registers may be made available for supervised inspection or as scanned images, instead of photocopies that could damage them.
• Not held in the requested form: the Act covers information "held" by or under the control of the authority (Section 2(f)). Where information does not exist in the requested form, such as a compiled statistical analysis, the PIO need not create it (CBSE v. Aditya Bandopadhyay (2011)). The existing records may be supplied or offered for inspection.

Related limits These go beyond the form in which information is given:

• copyright: access may be refused if it would infringe copyright held by a person other than the State (Section 9);
• exemptions: Section 8, subject to the public-interest override in Section 8(2);
• severability: only the non-exempt part is supplied (Section 10);
• third-party information: the procedure in Section 11 must be followed;
• fees: fees are payable for copies or electronic media (Section 7(3)).

Limit on the exceptions Section 7(9) permits a change in the form of access. It is not a ground for refusing information. The Information Commissions have repeatedly held that the PIO must offer an alternative form, such as inspection, rather than deny access.