The ministry of electronics and information technology’s (MeitY) decision to ask WhatsApp to pause the India rollout of its usernames feature has triggered a wider debate over how far the government can regulate new digital products before they are launched, with experts divided over whether the move is a legitimate exercise of statutory powers or a step towards executive pre-approval of product features.
Cyber law expert Pavan Duggal backed the government’s intervention, saying MeitY was well within its powers under the Information Technology Act to seek an explanation from intermediaries. “The government has the power under the IT Act to issue directions to intermediaries and ensure they exercise due diligence.
It has neither overstepped its jurisdiction nor done something detrimental to innovation by seeking an explanation,” Duggal said. He said that the real concern was not reserving usernames of the Prime Minister or other constitutional authorities but the wider risk of impersonation. “The problem of impersonation and cyber crime would rise from the segments which are outside the reserved list,” he added.
Former MeitY official Rakesh Maheshwari described the notice as a routine regulatory exercise, saying the government had every right to seek clarification where a structural product change could create security risks at India’s scale. He said Meta should have consulted agencies such as CERT-In, MeitY and the home ministry’s Indian Cyber Crime Coordination Centre (I4C) before the rollout, adding that investigators currently trace complaints through phone numbers and usernames could complicate that process.
Standard Cybersecurity Diligence
Others, however, questioned the legal basis for requiring prior government clearance for product features. Mishi Choudhary, founder of Software Freedom Law Centre (SFLC.in), said the notice risked creating executive pre-censorship of product design without explicit legal backing, even as she stressed that platforms must build stronger safeguards against impersonation rather than relying solely on users to report abuse.
Rohit Kumar, founding partner at The Quantum Hub, said India’s digital laws do not envisage ad hoc executive approval of individual product features and warned that blocking the rollout could face judicial scrutiny. “We shouldn’t be relying on case-by-case interventions or expecting companies to seek informal government permission every time they introduce a new feature. That risks creating a digital licence raj,” he said.
Escalation Threats
Legal experts also noted that the notice is a show-cause order rather than a ban. Naqeeb Ahmed Kazia, Partner at CMS IndusLaw, said that if WhatsApp’s response fails to satisfy MeitY, the matter could escalate to the withdrawal of safe harbour protection under Section 79 of the IT Act and potentially a blocking-style action.