Question : CIRCULATION OF BOOKS

(a) whether the Government bans the circulation of books/publications that may hurt religious sentiments and create law and order problem;

(b) if so, the rules and regulations for imposing ban on books/publications in the country;

(c) the details of books/publications which the Government has banned during each of the last three years;

(d) the details of violations of the ban imposed on such publications;

(e) whether most of the banned books in the country are available on the internet; and

(f) if so, the steps taken by the Government in this regard?

MINISTER OF THE STATE IN THE MINISTRY OF HOME AFFAIRS (SHRI JITENDRA SINGH)

(a) to (d): State Governments can invoke section 95 Cr PC, if the contents of any publication/book are such as to attract punishment under section 124-A or 153-A or 153-B or 292 or 293 or 295-A of the Indian Penal code. Therefore, the Government of India does not have a complete list of banned/proscribed book(s) in the country.

(e) to (f): Sub-section 3(b) of Section 79 of the Information Technology Act provides for removal/disablement of objectionable material on the intermediary computer resource. Rule 3(2) of he Information technology (Intermediaries Guidelines) Rules, 2011 inter-alia specify any content which violates any law for the time being in force to be infringing content. Rule 3(4) of the said Rule inter-alia provides that the intermediary upon obtaining knowledge by itself or been brought to actual knowledge by an affected person about unlawful content shall act and wherever applicable, work with the user or owner of such information to disable such information that is in contravention of sub-rule (2).