Untitled Page

Author	Dr Nagarathna Annappa
Organisation/Institution	National Law School of India University
Country	INDIA
Panel	Information Technology Law
Title	PROTECTING INTERNET USERS’ RIGHTS THROUGH THE PRINCIPLE OF RULE OF LAW – A STUDY OF INDIAN JUDICIAL PRECEDENTS EVALUATING STATE ACTION.
Abstract	Rule of law is often closely connected to the State’s obligation to protect human and fundamental rights of people. On one hand legal systems aim to extend protection of these rights of netizens on cyber space, at times State’s overarched exercise of power in the name of state surveillance or on the grounds of ensuring cyber security, national security leads to denial or violation of these rights of internet users. Some of such overarched powers are in deviation of ‘rule of law’ which hence raises the question of legal validity of such actions of state. India too has witnessed such exercise of powers in the name of ‘internet blocking orders,’ ‘electronic surveillance,’ etc. In some of such incidences such arbitrary exercise of State power has come under judicial scrutiny for raising questions about legal validity as well constitutionality of such States’ actions. Measuring the nature and extent of such arbitrary actions of state can be better done with the usage of the principle of rule of law. Courts in India have used the ‘rule of law’ and similar principles to question such arbitrary use of powers by state in cases like Shreya Singhal case , both Puttaswamy cases , Pegasus case , etc., and have tried to achieve the Constitutional aspirations while protecting internet users’ right to internet, right to freedom of speech and right to privacy. This paper attempts to make a study of laws and other actions through which state arbitrarily interfered with the internet users rights and also analyse the case laws through which such interferences were judicially reviewed from the lens of constitutional values and rule of law principle.
Biography	Dr. Nagarathna Annappa is working as an Associate Professor at National Law School of India University, Bengaluru since 2006. Having secured five gold medals and First Ranks in both BA. L and LL.B. from Bangalore University, she has done her Ph. D., in Medical Negligence Laws from Gulbarga University. Her areas of interest include Criminal laws, Cyber laws, and Medical Laws. She is a recipient of various fellowships awards including the ASLI fellowship in 2012, Shastri Indo-Canadian Fellowship, Shastri Mobility Programme, 2017-18. She is also the recipient of the prestigious “International Visitor Leadership Program” [IVLP] by United States’ Consulate Office, 2017. She has also received the grants from the UGC-DAAD funded project on Law and Transformations: Opening Conversations between Germany and India,” as part of the Indo-German Partnership in Higher Education and visited Humboldt University, Faculty of Law as a Visiting Professor and conducted research on Cyber-crime related theme at the University’s Chair for Public and Comparative Law from October to December 2023.