14 State Government may, if satisfied that it is necessary or expedient so to do in the interests of the sovereignty and integrity of India, the security of the State, friendly relations with foreign states or public order or for preventing incitement to the commission of an offence, for reasons to be recorded in writing, by order, direct that any message or class of messages to or from any person or class of persons, or relating to any particular subject, brought for transmission by or transmitted or received by any telegraph, shall not be transmitted, or shall be intercepted or detained, or shall be disclosed to the Government making the order or an officer thereof mentioned in the order: Provided that the press messages intended to be published in India of correspondents accredited to the Central Government or a State Government shall not be intercepted or detained, unless their transmission has been prohibited under this sub-section. (b) THE INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY ACT, 2000: Section 69(1), impugned herein, authorises the Central and State Governments to monitor, intercept, or decrypt information contained in any ‘computer resource’. A ‘computer resource’, defined under Section 2(1)(k), refers to a “computer, computer system, computer network, data, computer data base or software.” The provision, as originally stood from the year 2000 till 05.02.2009, vested the powers to intercept any information on the ‘Controller of Certifying Authorities’. By virtue of Information Technology (Amendment) Act, 2008 [‘2008 IT Amendment’], the Parliament extended the powers under Section 69 to “monitor” and “decrypt” electronic communications. Moreover, the 2008 Amendment introduced two additional grounds (viz., ‘defence of