Highlights
The Attorney General who was appearing for the State of Tamil Nadu began the arguments by saying that Section 69 of the IT Act, 2000 and Rule 13 of the IT (Procedure and Safeguards for Interception, Monitoring and Decryption) Rules, 2009 impose an obligation on intermediaries to decrypt. The Division Bench of Deepak Gupta J. and Aniruddha Bose J. agreed that decryption was possible and the Government was empowered to seek it because “if there is a lock, there must be a key.” However, there was some confusion regarding whether the intermediary had an obligation to decrypt or if it had an obligation to provide assistance to law enforcement for decryption.
This is a companion discussion topic for the original entry at https://internetfreedom.in/facebooks-transfer-petition-in-madras-hc-case-involving-encryption-and-traceability-allowed-after-tamil-nadu-government-withdraws-objections/