A Sunday sitting of the Supreme Court has exposed how fragile internet access and press freedom in the national capital became this past week. Reporters from at least nine outlets were detained on 10 October, and seven more on 11 October, with phones confiscated and footage wiped from devices. The episode has triggered a contempt petition, an urgent hearing before Justices Joymalya Bagchi and V. Mohana, and a sharp rebuke from the Internet Freedom Foundation over the state's handling of connectivity and civil liberties during the unrest.
What the Court actually ordered
The case, Shailendra Mani Tripathi v. Govind Mohan, was heard alongside a connected habeas corpus petition. The bench found a prima facie case, issued notice to the alleged contemnors, and directed a counter affidavit and compliance report by 13 October 2026. Its most consequential line sits at paragraph 16(c): internet facilities "should function unhindered." Unlike other parts of the order dealing with transport and movement, this direction carries no qualifying language - no exceptions for public order, no conditions attached. The Court also barred illegal detention and insisted that lawyers, journalists and other professionals be allowed to work without hindrance.
Why restoration after the fact is not accountability
Mobile internet was reportedly suspended for twenty-four hours across a four-kilometre radius in central Delhi starting 9 October at 10 pm, while counsel told the Court that roughly 7,000 people had been illegally detained in the city. The Union's response was an oral assurance that services had "since been restored." That is not how the law is supposed to work. Under the Supreme Court's own precedent in Anuradha Bhasin v. Union of India, and under the Telecommunications (Temporary Suspension of Services) Rules, 2024, any shutdown order must be published, must record specific reasons, and must be proportionate and time-limited. None of that happened here. An internet suspension imposed in secret and lifted quietly, without a published order or a Review Committee finding on record, defeats the entire purpose of a framework designed to prevent exactly this kind of unaccountable blackout.
Shutdowns of this kind also carry a cost beyond the obvious disruption to daily life. They cut off journalists from filing, lawyers from reaching clients, and families from confirming the safety of people caught up in a crackdown. Seizing phones and deleting footage compounds the damage: it destroys the very evidence that would let courts, oversight bodies or the public later verify what happened on the ground.
What comes next
The Internet Freedom Foundation has set out clear demands arising from this order:
- Full compliance with the Court's directions, with no suspension, throttling or jamming of internet services in Delhi going forward.
- Publication of every suspension order issued on 9 and 10 October 2026, including recorded reasons and the Review Committee's findings.
- An end to illegal detentions, with protesters, journalists and lawyers allowed to carry out their activities safely.
- Return of seized phones and public disclosure of seizure records.
Under Article 144 of the Constitution, every civil and judicial authority is bound to act in aid of the Supreme Court. That it took an emergency Sunday hearing and a contempt petition to secure a direction as basic as keeping the internet on in the capital says something uncomfortable about the present moment. Articles 19 and 21 - the freedoms of speech and assembly, and the guarantee of personal liberty - do not pause for a protest. Whether Sunday's order translates into actual restraint on the ground, rather than another instruction quietly set aside, will be the real test in the days ahead.