47
(Privacy) and in Mohd. Arif v Supreme Court, (2014) 9
SCC 737 held that a law would be amenable to challenge
under Article 21 not only on the ground that the procedure
which it prescribes is not fair, just and reasonable but also
on the grounds that the substantive provisions of the law
violate the Constitution and of violation of substantive due
process.
XXVI.
BECAUSE the 2009 IT Rules require that the Review
Committee (comprising of Executive officers) meet at
least once every two months and record its findings about
whether the directions issued under Rule 3 are in
accordance with Section 69(2). However, responses under
the RTI Act (annexed herein) have revealed that the
Central Government alone issues 7500 to 9000 orders of
interception of telephones in a month, while around 500
orders are issued every month for interception of emails.
As noted by the Justice Srikrishna Committee Report, “the
Review Committee has an unrealistic task of reviewing
15000-18000 interception orders in every meeting, while
meeting once in two months.” It is thus clear that no
proper application of mind can take place on every
interception order, to determine if it is lawful or not.
F.
XXVII.
MANIFEST ARBITRARINESS
BECAUSE Section 69 of the Act ought to be struck down
since it suffers from the vice of manifest arbitrariness, as it
has
been
framed
by the
legislature
capriciously,
irrationally and without an adequate determining principle,
even in comparison to Section 5(2) of the Telegraph Act.
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