The law playing catch-up with fast-moving technology and failing is almost a cliché.

In many countries it is similarly common for law makers to try and finish the arms race with laws that leapfrog technology as well as common sense and constitutions.

New rules created by India’s IT Ministry in April have now joined that club. The IT Act’s Intermediaries Guidelines Rules, while creating limited safe harbour provisions for online publishers, have also virtually enabled anyone to block anything online that is “disparaging”, among other things.

It was unsurprising that an Indian law firm lawyer was apparently one of the first to test these rules. More surprising was that the rules were tested on Legally India to block publication of an article on a subject already in the public domain.

After Legally India was injuncted ex parte for five weeks from publishing practically anything about the lawyer the case was withdrawn last Friday.

Read the full story on the Legally India gagging order here, which suggests that besides the an obvious unworkability of the rules, an infrastructure of checks, balances and adequate bandwidth is lacking.

In the meantime the rules remain on the books and pose a threat that is no longer theoretical to India’s budding online publishing space.

And it is not as though there are not enough remedies available under existing laws or a lack of courts willing to grant them.

One Indian educational institution this week used good old defamation to injunct publication of an article via the Assam District Court against a magazine, the publisher Penguin and, somewhat curiously, Google.

Effective regulation of offline and online content in a democracy has to protect legitimate interests, reputations as well as freedom of speech.

Drafting myopic laws that lack a minimum of market understanding fails on all counts.

Deals of the week

• Desai & Diwanji drafts $7.2bn docs to buy 72 new Airbus for Go
• Khaitan for Yes Bank on Rs 84 cr solar project funding
• JSA, Rajani on Rs 686 cr Saint-Gobain's slump purchase

Rest of legal

• Competition Commission India (CCI) takes a look at Apple iPads, iPhones
• CCI fines NSE 5% of turnover for abusing dominance
• Moily's legal reforms of bureaucrats and ministers to fetch Rs 5500 crore from central govt

Legal education updates

• Law schools show dismal record of RTI Act compliance
• NUJS boycotts Outlook law school rankings, NLU-J butts back in
• First jobs for current RGNUL Patiala grads after new VC tackles admin delays
• NLU Ranchi, Jharkhand to be given 100-acre campus, plans foreign tie-ups

Best of blogs

• Transition: from Corporate law to Litigation by The_Lion_King
• Breaking News: Competitive Camaraderie Amongst Indian Law Schools by Lex Fakes
• Law Students, their Egos and the Fight! by pranushak
• The Ugly Truth behind the Communal Violence Bill, 2011. Please forward it to as many people as you can by proficient
• No such thing as a blackberry-less vacation for a lawyer by Legally Drawn

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