President Murmu Grants Assent To The Telecom Bill; Law To Be Notified Separately

Amid the ongoing uproar over the Telecommunications Bill, President Droupadi Murmu on Sunday (December 24) gave her assent to the proposed legislation. 

The approval comes a week after the Bill was tabled in Parliament on December 18 and was passed by Lok Sabha on December 20 and Rajya Sabha on December 21. 

As per reports, the approval was accorded on Saturday (December 23). With this, the Bill has now become a law. 

However, there seems to be more clarity on when the new legislation will be notified. While the official gazette order mentioned the President’s assent, it also noted that the Act will be notified separately by the Centre on a different date.

“It shall come into force on such date as the Central Government may, by notification in the Official Gazette, appoint and different dates may be appointed for different provisions of this Act and any reference in any such provision to the commencement of this Act shall be construed as a reference to the commencement of that provision,” the gazette added. 

Simply put, the government may set separate dates for the enactment of different provisions of the law. 

The hotly contested new law replaces three archaic laws: the Indian Telegraph Act, 1885, the Indian Wireless Telegraphy Act, 1933, and the Telegraph Wires (Unlawful Possession) Act, 1950. The newly promulgated legislation aims to bring the country’s regulatory framework up to speed with technology and repeal century-old rules. 

The tabling of the Bill had invited a volley of criticism from internet activists who flagged the vague and expansive definition of the term ‘telecommunications’ in the Bill. Many had even flagged that the new law would also encompass internet services and unleash a ‘surveillance’ regime.

Raising concerns, a group of 61 global digital companies and organisations, including Mozilla, Proton and Signal, even wrote to IT minister Ashwini Vaishnaw and called for the revocation of the proposed legislation. They even termed the Bill a threat to Indian democracy and the internet. 

The biggest issue, however, pertained to OTT communication apps, which were brought under the purview of the government in a previous draft of the Bill. 

As concerns mounted that the newly tabled law, with its expansive definitions, would also cover messaging apps, Vaishnaw clarified that such platforms would be exempted from the new law and would continue to be regulated by the Information Technology Act, 2000.