Apar Gupta | |
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| Nationality | New Delhi, India |
| Alma mater | Amity Law School, Columbia Law School |
| Occupation(s) | Lawyer, Writer |
| Awards | Ashoka Fellowship |
Apar Gupta is a lawyer, founder and writer on democracy and technology from India. [1] In 2019 he was elected as an Ashoka Fellow for, "creating a model for digital rights advocacy in the country that is driven by the public, for the public," as the co-founder of the Internet Freedom Foundation. [2]
Gupta was born and raised in New Delhi, India. He attended Mount St Mary's School, obtained his B.A. (LLB) (Hons) degree from Amity Law School, and a postgraduate degree from the Columbia University School of Law. [3]
Gupta started out as a commercial litigator in the law firm of Karanjawala & Co., later merged his own firm Accendo Law Partners with Advani & Co. in 2010. [4] He was included in the Forbes India 30 under 30 list in 2014. [5]
Gupta resigned in 2015 to start his own law chamber [6] where he was a lawyer in notable civil liberties and constitutional cases that have digital or technology issues including Shreya Singhal v. Union of India (Section 66A), [7] Subramanium Swamy v. Union of India (criminal defamation), [8] Gaurav Sureshbhai Vyas v. State of Gujarat (Internet Shutdowns), [9] Justice Puttaswamy v. Union of India (Right to Privacy [10] and Aadhaar [11] ), PUCL v. Union of India (Surveillance Reforms), [12] and Anuradha Bhasin v. Union of India (Internet Shutdowns). [13]
He has represented the India Chapter of Friday's for Future when their website was blocked under terrorism charges. [14]
He is a co-founder of the SaveTheInternet.in campaign on net neutrality [15] and SaveOurPrivacy.in campaign for data protection and surveillance reforms. [16] After his work on the Section 66A case, [17] he co-authored a study to document compliance with the judgement to discover ongoing cases which continued unconstitutionally against the Supreme Court judgement. This was called, "shocking" by the Supreme Court. [18]
Gupta is the co-founder of the Internet Freedom Foundation (IFF) and was appointed its first executive director from 2018 [19] till November, 2023. [20] He resumed the role of IFF's Founder Director in November, 2024. [21] For his work at IFF he was awarded the Ashoka Fellowship in 2019 [22] and the Next Now Fellowship. [23] Gupta also filed a case as a petitioner against the Ministry of Home Affairs for disclosure of statistical data on surveillance in India. [24] He has deposed before a parliamentary committee on the DNA Bill [25] and before a commission inquiring into the use of Pegasus. [26]
On May 31, 2023, he presented Item #7 at the Annual meeting of shareholders of META Platforms [27] titled as, "Shareholder Proposal Regarding Report on Allegations of Political Entanglement and Content Management Biases in India" [28] that was defeated with 5% votes in its favour. [29]
Gupta authored the Commentary on the Information Technology Act which is published by LexisNexis. [30] He writes regularly on digital and democratic rights in leading newspapers and is quoted as an expert in India. [31] Gupta is published in reviewed journals like the Indian Journal of Law and Technology, Seminar and the India International Center Quarterly. [32] He has delivered the 11th Krishna Raj Memorial Lecture [33] at the 37th Annual Dr. Ramanatham Memorial Meeting (with Jinee Lokaneeta) and also started a youtube channel - Apar 1984 to take forward the discourse on digital policy. [34]
Lal Krishna Advani is an Indian politician who served as the 7th Deputy Prime Minister of India from 2002 to 2004. He is one of the co-founders of Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and a member of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), a right-wing Hindu nationalist volunteer organization. He is the longest serving Minister of Home Affairs serving from 1998 to 2004. He is also the longest serving Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha. He was the prime ministerial candidate of the BJP during the 2009 general election.
Section 377 is a British colonial penal code that criminalized all sexual acts "against the order of nature". The law was used to prosecute people engaging in oral and anal sex along with homosexual activity. As per a Supreme Court Judgement since 2018, the Indian Penal Code Section 377 is used to convict non-consensual sexual activities among homosexuals with a minimum of ten years’ imprisonment extended to life imprisonment. It has been used to criminalize third gender people, such as the apwint in Myanmar. In 2018, then British Prime Minister Theresa May acknowledged how the legacies of such British colonial anti-sodomy laws continue to persist today in the form of discrimination, violence, and even death.
Vithal Mahadeo Tarkunde, was a prominent Indian lawyer, civil rights activist, and humanist leader and has been referred to as the "Father of the Civil Liberties movement" in India and a former judge of the Bombay High Court The Supreme Court of India also praised him as "undoubtedly the most distinguished judge of the post-Chagla 1957 period" in the Bombay High Court.
Nikkhil Suresh Advani is an Indian director, producer and screenwriter who works in Hindi cinema. He along with his sister, Monisha Advani and Madhu Bhojwani, co-founded the entertainment company Emmay Entertainment.
Internet censorship in India is done by both central and state governments. DNS filtering and educating service users in suggested usages is an active strategy and government policy to regulate and block access to Internet content on a large scale. Measures for removing content at the request of content creators through court orders have also become more common in recent years. Initiating a mass surveillance government project like Golden Shield Project is an alternative that has been discussed over the years by government bodies.
The Information Technology Act, 2000 is an Act of the Indian Parliament notified on 17 October 2000. It is the primary law in India dealing with cybercrime and electronic commerce.
Dhananjaya Yeshwant Chandrachud is an Indian jurist, who served as the 50th Chief Justice of India from 9 November 2022 to 10 November 2024. He was appointed a judge of the Supreme Court of India in May 2016. He has also previously served as the chief justice of the Allahabad High Court from 2013 to 2016 and as a judge of the Bombay High Court from 2000 to 2013. He also served as the ex-officio Patron-in-Chief of the National Legal Services Authority and the de facto Chancellor of the National Law School of India University.
Gopal Subramanium is an Indian lawyer, international arbitrator, academic and Senior Advocate who practices primarily in the Supreme Court of India and the Delhi High Court. He served as the Solicitor General of India 2009–2011 and Additional Solicitor General of India 2005–2009. He served as Chairman of the Bar Council of India 2010–2011.
Rohinton Fali Nariman is a former judge of the Supreme Court of India. Before being elevated as a judge, he practised as a senior counsel at the Supreme Court. He was appointed the Solicitor General of India on 23 July 2011. He also served as a member of the Bar Council of India. He was designated as a Senior Counsel by Chief Justice Manepalli Narayana Rao Venkatachaliah in 1993 at the early age of 37.
Save Your Voice is a movement against internet censorship in India. It was founded by cartoonist Aseem Trivedi, journalist Alok Dixit, socialist Arpit Gupta and Chirag Joshi in January 2012. The movement was initially named "Raise Your Voice", before it was renamed. The movement started from Ujjain in Madhya Pradesh, under the frontier-ship of the movement's four founders; with a "Langda March" at Ujjain. The movement opposes the Information Technology Act of India and demands democratic rules for the governance of Internet. The campaign is targeted at the rules framed under the Information Technology Act, 2000.
Ashoka University is a private research university located in National Capital Region (India), providing a liberal education in the humanities, social sciences, and natural sciences. It was founded in 2014 and is based on the model of collective philanthropy, with 200+ founders across various industries.
The Central Monitoring System, abbreviated to CMS, is a centralized telephone interception provisioning system installed by the Centre for Development of Telematics (C-DOT), an Indian Government owned telecommunications technology development centre, and operated by Telecom Enforcement Resource and Monitoring (TERM) Cells. The CMC system is set up in each major state collocated with the TERM Cells. Telecom operators in India are required by law to give access to their networks to law enforcement agencies.
Mass surveillance is the pervasive surveillance of an entire or a substantial fraction of a population. Mass surveillance in India includes Surveillance, Telephone tapping, Open-source intelligence, Lawful interception, and surveillance under Indian Telegraph Act, 1885.
Anshu Gupta is an Indian entrepreneur. He founded the non-governmental organization Goonj. Goonj works on bridging urban and rural inequality. It does this by channelizing the urban surplus to initiate rural upliftment, disaster relief, and rehabilitation. Through Goonj, Anshu is building a parallel trash-based economy by creating barter between rural communities and urban surplus material. Anshu has been recognized by the Ramon Magsaysay foundation for his "creative vision in transforming the culture of giving in India".
Shreya Singhal v. Union of India is a judgement by a two-judge bench of the Supreme Court of India in 2015, on the issue of online speech and intermediary liability in India. The Supreme Court struck down Section 66A of the Information Technology Act, 2000, relating to restrictions on online speech, as unconstitutional on grounds of violating the freedom of speech guaranteed under Article 19(1)(a) of the Constitution of India. The Court further held that the Section was not saved by virtue of being a 'reasonable restriction' on the freedom of speech under Article 19(2). The Supreme Court also read down Section 79 and Rules under the Section. It held that online intermediaries would only be obligated to take down content on receiving an order from a court or government authority. The case is considered a watershed moment for online free speech in India.
Karuna Nundy is an Indian lawyer and Senior Advocate at the Supreme Court of India, designated as a Senior Advocate in 2024. She is qualified to practice in both India and New York. Her notable cases include enforcing blockchain regulations on behalf of Paytm against telecom companies, securing damages for a disability rights activist against SpiceJet, and addressing issues related to platform liability and online speech restrictions. She has also worked on efforts to provide safe water to Bhopal gas disaster victims. Her practice areas include constitutional law, commercial litigation, arbitration, intellectual property, technology law, and international law. She also serves as a mediator at the Supreme Court Mediation Centre.
Mishi Choudhary is a technology lawyer and online civil liberties activist working in the United States and India. She is the senior vice president and general counsel of Virtru, a role she started in 2022. Prior to that role, Mishi was the Legal Director of the Software Freedom Law Center as well as the Founder of SFLC.in. SFLC.in brings together lawyers, policy analysts and technologists to fight for digital rights, produces reports, and studies on the state of the Indian internet, also has a productive legal arm. Under her leadership, SFLC.in has conducted landmark litigation cases, petitioned the government of India on freedom of expression and internet issues, and campaigned for WhatsApp and Facebook to fix a feature of their platform that has been used to harass women in India.
Internet Freedom Foundation (IFF) is an Indian digital rights organisation that advances liberty, equality, fraternity and social justice in the digital age. IFF has three verticals of work that include strategic litigation, policy engagement and civic literacy.
The Information Technology Rules, 2021 is secondary or subordinate legislation that suppresses India's Intermediary Guidelines Rules 2011. The 2021 rules have stemmed from section 87 of the Information Technology Act, 2000 and are a combination of the draft Intermediaries Rules, 2018 and the OTT Regulation and Code of Ethics for Digital Media.
Shalu Nigam is an Indian lawyer, feminist legal scholar, and author. She was the petitioner in the landmark case Shalu Nigam v. Regional Passport Officer, decided on 17 May 2016, which held that passports can be issued without requiring the name of the father.
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