Karnataka High Court Reserves Verdict in Twitter’s Plea Against Central Government’s Order to Block Accounts

Karnataka High Court Reserves Verdict in Twitter’s Plea Against Central Government’s Order to Block Accounts

The Karnataka High Court has reserved its orders on the petitions moved by social media platform- Twitter Inc, which had challenged the ten blocking orders issued by the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeiTY), Government of India directing it to take down 39 URLs between February 2021 and February 2022.

The single judge Justice Krishna S Dixit reserved the verdict after hearing Twitter as well as the Central government at length.

In June, last year, MeitY served Twitter a letter setting out serious consequences of non-compliance, including, of initiating criminal proceedings against Twitter’s Chief Compliance Officer, and granted last opportunity to comply with a series of Blocking Orders. Failing to do so would lead to Twitter losing its series of Blocking Orders. Failing to do so would lead to Twitter losing its safe harbor immunity as available to it under Section 79(1) of the IT Act, the MeiTY warned.

Aggrieved by the same, the Twitter had approached the High Court.

The petition filed by Twitter before the High Court asserted that account-level blocking is a ‘disproportionate measure’ and violates the rights of users under the Constitution.

Out of a total of 1,474 accounts and 175 tweets, Twitter challenged the blocking of only 39 URLs.

According to the petition the orders in question were manifestly arbitrary, and that they were inconsistent with Section 69A of the Information Technology Act in both procedural and substantive ways.

Further it was submitted that orders fail to comply with the procedures and safeguards prescribed by the Information Technology (Procedure and Safeguards for Blocking for Access of Information by Public) Rules, 2009 (Blocking Rules),

Twitter also argued that the direction to block entire accounts falls afoul of Section 69A of the IT Act.

The Counsels appearing for Twitter Senior Advocate Ashok Haranahalli, Arvind Datar and Advocate Manu Kulkarni, while vociferously opposing to the order, had contended that that Twitter cannot speak on of its account holders and, therefore, has no locus standi to file the petition.

The Counsels further claimed that Twitter did not have the right to espouse the cause of users since such an action requires statutory enablement. The company could only approach the Court claiming violation of rights under Article 14 if the government has acted arbitrarily.

Further it was vehemently argued that since Twitter is a foreign entity and the government ten blockings order were not arbitrary in nature, the company cannot invoke any fundamental rights that it might have under Articles 14 (right to equality) and 19 (right to freedom of speech and expression) of the Indian Constitution.

Additional Solicitor General R. Sankaranarayanan appearing for the government questioned the maintainability of the petition filed by the foreign company.

He contended, “The petitioner being a foreign company cannot avail any remedy of fundamental rights guaranteed under Article 19 (1) and Article 21 of the Constitution of India. The petitioner company does not have a legal mandate to espouse the cause of twitter users/account holders. For espousing there should be statutory enablement like the Industrial Disputes Act, Trade Unions Act, wherein the cause of workmen becomes legally espousable by others and more particularly trade unions.”

Referring to Section 79 of the Information Technology Act which pertains to exemption from liability of intermediary in certain cases, it was submitted, “Intermediary is bound to obey the orders which the designate authority/agency which the government fixes from time to time.”

The stand of the Central Government was that the directions to block certain Twitter accounts were issued in national and public interest and to prevent incidents of lynching and mob violence.

The government has repeatedly emphasised that it is committed to providing an open, safe, trusted, and accountable internet to its citizens, and that its powers to block information has a limited scope.