Polity · 19 Aug 2026
In Shreya Singhal v. Union of India (2015), the Supreme Court held that an intermediary's "actual knowledge" under Section 79(3)(b) of the Information Technology Act, 2000 - which triggers the obligation to take down content to retain safe harbour protection - is established only through:
Blocking orders surged to nearly 1.95 lakh between March-July 2026 (roughly 1,275 a day, against a prior baseline of 2,312 orders across 19 platforms in the entire October 2024-October 2025 period), with digital rights groups flagging Meta's automated compliance mechanism as a structural break from the human-review safeguard Shreya Singhal built into Section 79(3)(b).
Intermediary liability and the Shreya Singhal precedent are recurring UPSC Polity themes; this question tests the precise legal standard rather than the general fact that the case exists, which is the depth-of-understanding UPSC typically probes.
Shreya Singhal v. Union of India (2015) struck down Section 66A and read down Section 79(3)(b) so that an intermediary's "actual knowledge" is triggered only by a court order or a government notification - not by private complaints.
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