SC to hear on Manipur internet shutdown: Shashi Tharoor hopes apex court will uphold citizens’ rights | India News

NEW DELHI: Congress MP Shashi Tharoor urged the Supreme Court to protect the rights of citizens in Manipur, where the internet has been banned for three months. The Centre has challenged a Manipur high court order that eased the internet ban, and the Supreme Court will hear the case on Monday.
The Kerala MP Tharoor tweeted a long thread in which he cited the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Information Technology’s report from 2022. The report said that there is no justification provided by the government that demonstrates in any way that internet shutdowns actually impede, let alone prevent, violence or terrorism anywhere.

“It is a reflexive bureaucratic action that causes far more inconvenience to ordinary citizens than a useful security measure,” the MP said. Tharoor further added that “It is bizarre that India is the only democracy in the world that routinely resorts to internet shutdowns for extended periods of time, with no appreciable effect on violence, but causing considerable inconvenience to ordinary citizens.”
Tharoor expressed hope that “the Supreme Court will stand up for the rights of citizens rather than for the blinkered babus who are completely indifferent to the impact of their decisions on citizens who use the internet for banking, credit card transactions, enrolments, examinations, and to obtain all kinds of vital information.”
“The Court must end this awful practice now!