Supreme Court takes note of government’s weird demand

On Friday, the Supreme court took a important note of the Information and Broadcasting Ministry’s decision to set up a social media hub for monitoring online data as it will be “like creating a surveillance state”.

The top court said the government wants to tap citizens’ WhatsApp messages and making an attempt to respond within two weeks.

A bench of Chief Justice Dipak Misra and Justices A M Khanwilkar and D Y Chandrachud issued notice to the Centre on a plea by Trinamool Congress (TMC) legislator Mahua Moitra and requested Attorney General K K Venugopal’s assistance in the matter.

The bench said, “The government wants to tap citizens’ WhatsApp messages. It will be like creating a surveillance state.”

On August 20th 2018, the tender will be opened that government has issued as a request for proposal, said Senior advocate A M Singhvi when appeared for Moitra.

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“They want to monitor social media content with the help of this social media hub,” Singhvi added.

The bench is listing the matter on August 3, before the opening of tender on August 20. Also, AG or any law officer for the government will assist the court in the matter.

The government is trying to monitor the social media contents of individuals by tracking their social media accounts such as those on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram, and their e-mails, said the counsel for Moitra.

In recent day, the Broadcast Engineering Consultants India Limited (BECIL), a Public Sector Undertaking (PSU) under the ministry, had floated a tender to supply a software for the project.

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