The Central government on Wednesday told the Karnataka High Court that X Corp (formerly Twitter) was merely an intermediary and, therefore, did not need to access review committee orders which confirmed the government's decision to block certain accounts and content on the social media platform between 2021 and 2022.
Appearing for the Centre, Additional Solicitor General Arvind Kamath told a Bench of Justices V Kameswar Rao and Rajesh Rai Kallangala that X Corp was not the author of the said content or the blocked accounts. Therefore, the company needed to show the Court why it had a right to harbour a grievance against the Union’s order.
“Why does the appellant need to see the review file? He is only an intermediary. What is his grievance if some accounts are blocked? These accounts were asked to be blocked because at that time, several fake tweets were being posted from certain neighbouring countries,” Kamath said.
Representing X, Senior Advocate Sajan Poovayya told the Court that the social media platform had every right to see the review committee’s orders since the Central government’s communication asking it to block accounts and content was based directly on such orders. Poovayya said that since X Corp was liable to face penal action if it failed to comply with the Centre’s directions, it had every right to ask for the reasons behind such orders.
“The single judge indicates that although I am a corporate entity, I have the locus to tap the writ jurisdiction of this Court. If an order is passed on me to take down tweets by whoever is the author, I need to know the reasons because there is a consequence in the law. If I don't take it down, I face seven years' imprisonment,” Poovayya said.
The Court said that it would consider on merits if X Corp had a right to access the review committee’s orders. It will hear the matter further on November 12.
X Corp had approached the division bench in August this year, challenging the June 30, 2023 verdict of a single-judge that had dismissed its petition against the Centre’s blocking orders.
In his judgment, Justice Krishna S Dixit opined that it is a matter of State policy to decide how long a tweet or an X handle should be blocked. He also remarked that even if the Court had powers to lay down guidelines, it would not exercise such power at the instance of a “foreign entity engaged in speculative litigation.”
The Court agreed with the decision not to give notice to X users in some of the cases under dispute. These users were referred to as anti-India campaigners, terrorists, sedition-seekers and foreign adversaries who intended to destabilise India.
Justice Dixit had also imposed costs of ₹50 lakh on X Corp. On August 10, however, another division bench of the High Court had stayed the single-judge's order and had directed X Corp to deposit ₹25 lakh to show its bona fides.
In its petition filed before the High Court, X contended 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, it challenged the blocking of only 39 URLs.
The petition stated that the orders in question are manifestly arbitrary, and procedurally and substantively not in consonance with Section 69A of the Information Technology Act. Further, they 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), it was submitted.