The Supreme Court has recognised internet access as a fundamental right for children and adults, saying protection should target harmful content and its distributors rather than exclude minors from the digital world.
India’s Supreme Court has now placed internet access firmly within the scope of fundamental rights, marking a significant legal step for children as well as adults. In the case of “Just Rights for Children Alliance vs S Harish”, the court said access to and use of the internet falls under constitutional protection and rejected blanket age-based restrictions on minors, arguing that safety measures should focus on harmful material and those who create or distribute it, rather than cutting children off from the digital world altogether. Legal reports also note that the bench linked the issue to earlier jurisprudence, including the 2020 Anuradha Bhasin ruling, which had already recognised internet access as integral to constitutional freedoms.
The judgment comes at a time when the internet has become woven into daily life, especially education. According to the National Statistics Office’s 2025 survey, 86.3% of Indian households had internet access, with coverage at 83.3% in rural areas and 91.6% in urban areas. Yet those numbers do not tell the whole story. The Annual Status of Education Report 2024 found that while 89.1% of rural children aged 14 to 16 had a smartphone at home, only 65.9% could actually use one for digital tasks, and just 31.4% of those users owned a phone themselves. The same survey showed a gender gap in ownership, with boys ahead of girls.
That divide matters because a right that exists only on paper is not a right that can be exercised in practice. The court’s reasoning is therefore likely to have wider consequences for policy makers who have considered age-based limits on screen time or internet use. Reports on the ruling say the bench instead favoured targeted safeguards, including parental guidance, privacy protections, tighter moderation of harmful content and controls that would keep children safer online without stripping them of access. In that sense, the judgment shifts the debate away from prohibition and towards regulated participation.
The decision also lands in the middle of a more difficult public conversation about child safety online. According to later reports, the court directed the Centre to develop a national database to help identify and remove sexually explicit material involving minors from digital platforms, reflecting concern over the circulation of child sexual exploitation and abuse content. That aspect of the ruling underlines the court’s broader view: internet access must expand, but the state and platforms must also act decisively against misuse. The practical challenge now is to make those two goals work together, so that children are connected, protected and not left behind by the digital economy.
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