The government's decision to block access to BitChat, a messaging app designed to work even during internet shutdowns, has sparked criticism from digital rights advocates, who say it targeted one of the few tools available to students caught in repeated communication blackouts around the students' protest site in Delhi's Jantar Mantar.
For many of the young protesters gathered at the site, BitChat was less a political tool than a practical necessity. Students who arrived in groups but became separated during the demonstrations often found themselves unable to contact family members or fellow protesters after mobile internet services were suspended.
Tech volunteers advised them to download the app, as it relays messages over Bluetooth rather than mobile networks. The caveat was that it would be rendered ineffective if the authorities deployed Bluetooth jammers — something protesters and rights groups insist happened at Jantar Mantar alongside repeated internet shutdowns.
The app proved particularly useful for first-time protesters, many of them school and college students from outside Delhi, including young women travelling without their families. With mobile connectivity repeatedly cut off around the protest site, they were among those most affected by the communications blackout.
Late on 23 July, however, the government escalated its response, directing GitHub to block public access to BitChat in India under the Information Technology Act.
The Internet Freedom Foundation (IFF) condemned the order issued at 11.16 pm on 23 July by the Indian Cyber Crime Coordination Centre (I4C), Ministry of Home Affairs, directing GitHub to remove the code repositories of BitChat, including the Android application and its release files, within three hours. It threatened the platform with loss of safe harbour and criminal prosecution. No copy was published by the Government of India. The public learnt of it from a post by former Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey, who uploaded the order on X and stated, 'The Government of India wants Bitchat taken down.'
A statement issued on Friday, 24 July by the IFF reads: 'Since 17 July 2026, the Ministry of Home Affairs has suspended mobile internet around Jantar Mantar as per public reports about five times, most recently within a 1.5-kilometre radius from 4 pm until midnight on 23 July. That radius takes in Janpath and parts of Connaught Place. Reports describe signal jammers at the protest site and people walking two kilometres before their phones work.'
The statement explains the effect and points out, 'Inside that zone a student separated from her group during a detention drive cannot send a message to say where she is. Thousands of students and young people have camped at Jantar Mantar since June, seeking accountability for examination irregularities. Permission for their march to Parliament was refused. Metro stations were shut and also internet connectivity has been blocked. BitChat is an open-source application built for exactly this situation. It passes messages from phone to phone over Bluetooth, without mobile networks or a central server.'
The IFF statement notes that the order does not identify a single unlawful message. Instead the order says that 'the application is dangerous' because it enables communication 'even during network restrictions' and can 'circumvent lawful restrictions' during 'internet shutdowns'. Hence, the government's objection is that citizens can speak to one another while it has switched the internet off.
The IFF holds that the order is illegal on at least four grounds.
1. Section 79(3)(b) is not a blocking power. In Shreya Singhal v. Union of India (2015) 5 SCC 1, the Supreme Court read down the provision. Intermediaries may be required to act only on a court order, or a government notification confined to the grounds under Article 19(2) of the Constitution. Blocking is governed exclusively by Section 69A and the Blocking Rules, 2009, which require a hearing and reasons recorded in writing, subject to review. Directions issued under Section 79(3)(b), Rule 3(1)(d) and the Sahyog Portal evade these safeguards, and constitutional challenges to this parallel regime are pending before high courts.
2. The order asserts that the repositories contain 'information which is prohibited under any law' without naming any such information, and rests on what the application is 'capable of' enabling. Anticipated misuse of a communications tool is not a lawful basis to prohibit the tool. By this logic, a telephone exchange could be sealed.
3. The order cites Section 43 of the IT Act, a civil compensation provision, alongside conspiracy and abetment offences under the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, against a platform that hosts code.
4. A three-hour deadline issued close to midnight forecloses legal assessment and recourse, and fails the proportionality standard in Anuradha Bhasin v. Union of India (2020) 3 SCC 637. What the takedown actually prevents, the statement elaborates, is scrutiny of the underlying code.
In the statement the IFF demanded that the Government of India:
1. Withdraw notice no. 11072601011432 dated 23 July 2026 issued to GitHub
2. Publish every takedown direction issued under Section 79(3)(b), Rule 3(1)(d) and the Sahyog Portal, with the reasons recorded for each
3. Restore full connectivity around Jantar Mantar, publish all suspension orders, and disclose the legal authority for the deployment of jammers.
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