I am not a lawyer applies here:-

A few points not raised by the media every time some indian citizen gets incarcerated because of overzealous actions of law enforcement, social pressure groups based on sectarian interests, political parties, religious fundamentalists and where the companies in telecom, ISP or Web space cooperate sometimes not even following the due process of law.

1. Under section 78 of IT act 2000 http://www.mit.gov.in/download/itbill2000.pdf , offenses under this act must not be investigated by an officer below the rank of a Deputy Superintendent of Police. Does the police comply with it ?

2. Can the indian police legally seek private and confidential information from any company ? There is no such mention in the IT act of any such search, confistication and discovery of ‘non-public’ information in a non-public place by the police. The powers for discovery if any lie with the Cyber Appellate Tribunal ( or maybe the courts, high court and above) ?

3. Wouldn't this kind of sharing be in violation of section 72 of IT act dealing with breach of confidentiality and privacy. If the IP address of the subscriber isn’t public information can it be disclosed to the police without any discovery order by a competent judicial authority ? Is the due process of law being followed by companies in sharing information with the law enforcement agencies who may not have any authority to seek information before they have obtained a judicial order.

4. Section 67 reads something like this: “Whoever publishes or transmits or causes to be published in the electronic form, any material which is lascivious or appeal to the prurient interest or if its effect is such as to tend to deprave and corrupt persons who are likely, having regard to all relevant circumstances, to read, see or hear the matter contained or embodied in it”

Its quite debatable whether the section 67 can and should be applied to every speech online where some special interest pressure group gets offended.