Internet Shutdown Writ in Bangladesh: The 2024 Blackouts, Section 97A and the 2025 Ban

Internet shutdown writ: the legal framework in 2026

An internet shutdown writ is a petition to the High Court Division under Article 102 of the Constitution challenging an order, instruction or practice that cuts, throttles or blocks internet access, whether nationwide, in a region or for particular platforms. Until late 2025 the legal question was whether the Bangladesh Telecommunication Act 2001 lawfully allowed the government to switch the internet off. After the shutdowns of July and August 2024, and the interim government's December 2025 amendment declaring that services cannot be shut down under any circumstances, the question has shifted to how that prohibition is enforced and what happens when it is breached.

This guide explains the statutory powers that were used before 2025, what the 2024 shutdowns revealed about how orders were actually given, the constitutional rights a shutdown engages, the 2025 telecommunication reforms, and how operators, businesses, users and rights organisations can frame a petition. It treats the events of 2024 factually, drawing on the official probe and independent technical measurement.

Summary: Before December 2025, sections 97 and 97A of the Bangladesh Telecommunication Act 2001 gave the government broad power to suspend communications on security and public order grounds, with no time limit or published order. The Telecommunication (Amendment) Ordinance 2025 provides that internet and telecommunication services cannot be shut down under any circumstances, although its status after the 2026 Parliament should be confirmed. A writ petition is the means of challenging an order made in breach of that rule, seeking restoration, publication of the order and accountability.

Key point: The 2024 shutdowns were largely ordered verbally or by WhatsApp message, with no published written order. Any future internet shutdown writ should begin by demanding the order itself: an instruction that cannot be produced is, by definition, action without lawful authority under Article 102(2)(a)(ii).

At a glance

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Table of Contents

The legal powers behind past shutdowns

Internet shutdowns in Bangladesh were never authorised by a single, clearly drafted provision. They rested on a cluster of powers in the Bangladesh Telecommunication Act 2001, read broadly by the authorities that used them.

Section 97: emergency priority and suspension

Section 97 gives the government priority over telecommunication systems during a declared war, internal rebellion or disorder, or a defence or security need, and allows it to suspend licences or particular services when the President declares a state of emergency.[1] A 2006 amendment added the words "in the interest of the security of the state or public order", which extended the power beyond declared emergencies and allowed the government to order operators to shut down the internet partially or completely on its own opinion.[2]

Section 97A: interception and suspension by agencies

Section 97A (97Ka in the Bengali text) allows the government, through the Ministry of Home Affairs, to empower intelligence, security, investigation and law enforcement agencies to suspend or prohibit the transmission of any data or voice call on national security and public order grounds, and to intercept and record communications. Operators must give the agency full support, and the Act sets no time limit.[1] This was the provision under which the National Telecommunication Monitoring Centre operated.

Section 66A and the BTRC's blocking power

Section 66A allows the Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission to stop any signal or message where it considers this expedient for sovereignty, security, public order or preventing incitement to an offence, again with mandatory operator assistance. Section 85(1) allows the Commission to treat government request data as confidential.[1] That confidentiality made it almost impossible for users to obtain, let alone challenge, the orders behind earlier blackouts.

What the 2024 shutdowns revealed

The July and August 2024 disruptions are the best-documented internet shutdown in Bangladesh, and they define the factual record against which any future internet shutdown writ will be argued.

The timeline

Independent measurement by Digitally Right and OONI shows mobile throttling and shutdowns in university areas from 15 July 2024, a nationwide mobile cut at 1:29 am on 18 July followed by a broadband cut that evening, restored but throttled broadband from 24 July, mobile service returning around 28 July, extensive platform blocking including Facebook, WhatsApp, YouTube and VPN services, and a renewed mobile blackout on 4 August with a further broadband outage on 5 August. Connectivity was disrupted on 20 of the 22 days.[4]

How the orders were given

The government probe committee formed on 11 August 2024 reported preliminary findings two days later. It found that the BTRC's engineering department ordered the first suspensions by WhatsApp on 15 July, that the NTMC issued its own directives from 17 July, and that on 18 July the BTRC told submarine cable and international gateway providers to halt bandwidth on the direct orders of the then state minister for ICT. It found the official explanation of a data centre fire to be untrue and described the shutdown as a deliberate act to suppress the protests.[3] OONI similarly found that most orders were informal or verbal and that formal written orders were largely unavailable.[4]

Why the record matters legally

The legality of a shutdown depends on the existence and content of the order. An instruction given by message, by an official with no statutory power to give it, without the conditions the Act requires and without publication, is open to challenge as made without lawful authority. We have not found a reported High Court Division judgment, or a reported rule nisi, determining the legality of the 2024 shutdowns, so the issue remains to be decided on a properly evidenced petition.

Earlier disruptions

2024 was not the first episode. Disruptions have been recorded since 2009, including a brief blackout in November 2015, nationwide mobile throttling during the 2018 student protests and platform blocking in 2021.[4] Each was justified, when it was justified at all, by reference to the same broad security and public order powers, and none produced a judgment defining their limits.

Constitutional rights engaged by a shutdown

A shutdown is unusual because it restricts many rights at once and affects people who have done nothing at all. An internet shutdown writ should plead each of them.

Article 39: expression and information

Article 39(2) guarantees freedom of speech and expression and freedom of the press, subject only to reasonable restrictions imposed by law on the listed grounds.[12] A blanket shutdown silences everyone, including the press, rather than restricting identified unlawful speech. Comparative law points the same way: in Anuradha Bhasin v Union of India (2020) the Supreme Court of India held that restrictions on internet access must meet the conditions of proportionality and necessity.[2] A blanket shutdown is the most intrusive rather than the least intrusive means of addressing unlawful speech.

Livelihood, trade and privacy

Shutdowns also affect the right to life and livelihood under Article 32, the freedom of profession, occupation, trade and business under Article 40, and, where shutdown powers are paired with interception, the privacy of correspondence under Article 43. Commentators have listed education, cultural life, association, assembly and participation in public affairs among the rights affected in 2024.[2] For businesses, payment systems, export orders and remote services, the Article 40 ground is often the most concrete.

International standards

The UN Human Rights Council affirmed in 2012 that rights offline must be protected online and in 2016 condemned measures that intentionally prevent access to information online.[2] These standards do not bind the Court directly, but they inform the meaning of reasonableness under Article 39(2).

For the general framework of speech challenges, see our sibling guide to the freedom of expression writ.

The 2025 telecommunication reforms

The interim government made the prohibition of shutdowns a central part of its telecommunications reform.

The prohibition

The draft Bangladesh Telecommunication (Amendment) Ordinance 2025 provided that no telecommunication connection, service or internet access shall be shut down, disrupted or restricted under any circumstances.[6] The Advisory Council gave final approval on 24 December 2025, and the press secretary said services could not be shut down "even for a minute".[7] The prohibition is stated without exceptions in the published reporting.[10]

Interception and the end of the NTMC

The ordinance dissolves the National Telecommunication Monitoring Centre and replaces it with a Centre for Information Support under the Ministry of Home Affairs, which may support interception only with prior approval from a quasi-judicial council.[8] Lawful interception is defined, limited to agencies named in the law acting within their jurisdiction, subject to role-based access control and tied to personal data protection standards.[9] A council led by the law adviser and a Transparency and Accountability Committee overseeing the BTRC were also proposed.[7]

Durability after the 2026 election

Reform made by ordinance depends on the elected Parliament. Before the February 2026 election, the BNP argued that a reform this sweeping should be left to an elected Parliament, and critics questioned the 30-day process and the ordinance's reach into AI, OTT and social media regulation.[10]

After the election, Parliament moved quickly to carry interim-government ordinances into Acts. On 7 April 2026 it passed fourteen bills "to endorse the relevant ordinances promulgated during the tenure of the interim government", including amendments to the Code of Criminal Procedure and the Civil Courts Act; the telecommunication ordinance was not among them.[5] We have not been able to confirm from published sources whether the shutdown prohibition has since been enacted by Parliament, amended or allowed to lapse. Anyone relying on it should confirm its current statutory form before filing. If the bar remains in force, a shutdown order is unlawful on its face; if it has been diluted, the challenge returns to the reasonableness of the surviving powers.

Framing an internet shutdown writ

A strong petition is built on three elements: the order, the illegality and the remedy.

Identifying the order

Ask the operator, the BTRC and the ministry in writing for the instruction, its date, its author and its legal basis. Operators often receive the instruction and may disclose its existence even if they cannot share its text. Where nothing is produced, the petition should say so and seek a direction for production.

Grounds

• Statutory prohibition: where the 2025 bar applies, any shutdown order breaches it.
• Want of authority: the official or body that gave the order had no power to do so.
• Failure of conditions: no declared emergency, no recorded security or public order finding, no Home Ministry authorisation where one is required.
• Unreasonableness: a blanket or indefinite measure is disproportionate under Article 39(2).
• Procedural unfairness: no publication, no time limit and no review.

Remedies to seek

Typical prayers include certiorari quashing the order, mandamus directing restoration, a direction to publish shutdown and blocking orders, a declaration that the action was without lawful authority, and compensation where losses can be proved. Interim relief directing restoration pending the rule is the most valuable prayer, because the harm of a shutdown is immediate. Our overview of writ petitions in Bangladesh explains how interim orders are obtained.

Who should file

Users, journalists and rights organisations can file in the public interest. Businesses that suffered quantifiable losses have the clearest individual standing, and operators themselves may petition where they are compelled to act against their licence and the new statutory bar. Public interest telecom petitions are well established: in February 2025 the High Court Division issued a rule asking why unused mobile data, minutes and SMS should not be carried over to the next package, naming the telecommunications secretary and the BTRC chairman as respondents.[11]

Partial measures: throttling and platform blocks

Not every disruption is a total blackout. The 2024 record includes deliberate throttling of broadband, disabling of cache servers, blocking of individual platforms and interference with VPN services.[4] An internet shutdown writ can and should cover these partial measures. A platform block is a restriction on expression in the same way as a network cut, and throttling that renders a service unusable has the same practical effect as switching it off.

Partial measures are often harder to prove, because the State can describe them as technical problems. Independent measurement data, operator statements and traffic records from content providers are therefore central evidence. Where the 2025 prohibition applies, its wording, which covers services that are "disrupted or restricted" as well as shut down, is broad enough to reach throttling and blocking.[6]

Defences the State may raise

Petitioners should anticipate three arguments. The first is security: the State will say that the disruption was necessary to prevent violence or the spread of incitement. The answer lies in proportionality and in the absence of any recorded, contemporaneous finding to that effect. The second is emergency: during a formally proclaimed emergency the Constitution permits the enforcement of certain fundamental rights to be suspended, which is why the existence or absence of a proclamation must be established at the outset.

The third is mootness: once services are restored, the State may argue there is nothing left to decide. Courts regularly decide public law questions of continuing importance, and an internet shutdown writ seeking declarations, disclosure and compensation does not become academic merely because the network is back.

Step-by-step: an internet shutdown writ in the first days

Speed matters more in shutdown cases than in almost any other writ. The sequence below is designed for the first days of a disruption.

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Keep a contemporaneous log throughout. Courts are far more receptive to a petition that documents exactly which services were cut, where and when, than to one that describes the disruption in general terms.

Comparing the legal regimes

The table below compares the position before and after the 2025 reforms. On a phone, scroll it sideways.

Operators and digital businesses should review their licence terms and internal escalation procedures against the new framework. Our guides to telecommunications law in Bangladesh and the sibling note on the BTRC licence writ address the regulatory side.

Practical points for operators and businesses

Operators

Operators sit between the State and their subscribers. Under the old law they were obliged to give full support to authorised agencies, and confidentiality provisions limited what they could disclose.[1] Under the 2025 framework, an instruction to shut down conflicts with a statutory prohibition. Operators should insist on written instructions, record the identity and authority of the person giving them, and take advice before complying with an instruction that the law appears to forbid.

Businesses and users

Businesses that lose revenue, miss export deadlines or breach contracts because of a shutdown should document losses carefully, notify counterparties under force majeure clauses, and preserve evidence for any compensation claim. An internet shutdown writ seeking compensation is far stronger when supported by audited loss figures than by estimates. Our constitutional and writ litigation practice and telecommunications practice work together on these matters.

Media and rights organisations

For the press, a shutdown is a direct restriction on the freedom of the press under Article 39(2)(b), because it prevents reporting as well as reading.[12] Newsrooms and rights organisations are well placed to file quickly in the public interest, and their contemporaneous records of what could and could not be published are valuable evidence. They should also preserve correspondence with platforms about blocked accounts or content, which often reveals instructions that were never published.

What to watch

Three issues will shape the next internet shutdown writ: whether the 2025 prohibition survives in its absolute form, how the new interception council works in practice, and whether courts will require publication of blocking orders as a condition of their validity. Until those questions are settled, the safest course is to treat any undisclosed shutdown order as presumptively unlawful and to move quickly.

Frequently asked questions

Is an internet shutdown legal in Bangladesh in 2026?

The Telecommunication (Amendment) Ordinance 2025, approved on 24 December 2025, provides that internet and telecommunication services cannot be shut down under any circumstances. It was not among the ordinances Parliament converted into law on 7 April 2026, so confirm its current statutory form before relying on it.[7] [8] [5]

What powers did the government use before 2025?

Mainly sections 97 and 97A of the Bangladesh Telecommunication Act 2001, together with the BTRC's blocking power in section 66A.[1]

What does section 97A of the Telecommunication Act allow?

It allows the government to empower security and law enforcement agencies to suspend or prohibit data and voice transmission and to intercept communications on national security and public order grounds, with no time limit.[1]

Who ordered the July 2024 shutdown?

The government probe found the BTRC and NTMC coordinated it on the direct orders of the then state minister for ICT, and that the data centre fire explanation was untrue.[3]

How long did the 2024 shutdowns last?

Independent measurement found connectivity disrupted on 20 of the 22 days between 15 July and 5 August 2024.[4]

Which rights does a shutdown violate?

Principally freedom of expression and information under Article 39, together with livelihood, trade and business, and privacy of correspondence where interception is involved.[2] [12]

What happened to the NTMC?

The 2025 ordinance dissolves it and replaces it with a Centre for Information Support, which may support interception only with prior approval from a quasi-judicial council.[8]

Can I get compensation for losses caused by a shutdown?

The High Court Division can award compensation in writ proceedings for violation of fundamental rights. Claims are strongest when supported by documented, quantified losses.

Who can file an internet shutdown writ?

Affected users, journalists, businesses, operators and public interest organisations. Public interest telecom petitions against the BTRC are well established.[11]

What should I ask for first?

Interim restoration of services and production of the order. A shutdown instruction that cannot be produced is difficult for the State to defend as lawful.