Intermediary Responsibility for Constitutional Harms

Abstract

The actions and inactions of intermediaries have resulted in both private and public harms. Public harms include the illicit influence of voting behavior through manipulation of public opinion, directly undermining democracy. Although the Supreme Court of India recognized such public harms that result from intermediary behavior, it did not go beyond the privacy framework in addressing these harms. Based on an analysis of Indian law, the article proposes a new normative category—constitutional harms—to refocus attention on a special class of public harms, thereby opening up the debate on new remedies to address such harms.