The government will follow due process and social media platforms must follow the law, sources have said after Elon Musk-owned social media giant X sued the Centre, accusing it of misusing Information Technology laws to create an “unlawful blocking regime”. “Process will be followed and social media platforms should follow the law,” a source has told NDTV.
The sharp response comes after X, previously known as Twitter, filed a writ petition against the Centre and its ministries in the Karnataka High Court. In its petition, X has cited the Supreme Court verdict in the 2015 Shreya Singhal case, which struck down Section 66A of the Indian Information Technology Act that criminalised sending offensive messages on communication devices.
X’s petition says the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology has told central ministries and state governments and “effectively tens of thousands of local police officers” that they are authorised to issue information blocking orders under Section 79(3)(b), outside the Section 69A process. Section 79(3)(b) lays down that an IT intermediary loses its immunity from liability if it does not “expeditiously remove or disable access” to material flagged by a government agency as linked to an unlawful act.
X’s petition says that the use of Section 79(3)(b) circumvents Section 69A, which empowers the government to issue directions to block public access to information but lays down safeguards.
“Section 79 merely exempts intermediaries from liability for third-party content; it does not empower the government to issue information blocking orders in violation of Section 69A. A full 23 years after Section 79 was enacted, and 14 years after the current version went into effect, Respondents are now attempting to misuse Section 79 to create an unlawful blocking regime without any of the protections that exist under Section 69A, the Blocking Rules, and the law laid down by the Supreme Court in Shreya Singhal,” the petition says.
In its petition, X said the Centre is “attempting to bypass the multiple procedural safeguards in the Blocking Rules and the specified grounds of Section 69A” and that it violates the Supreme Court order.
It has said the Centre and the other respondents have lawful avenues to block information in an emergency. “Any government agency can use the Section 69A process by sending a request to the Designated Officer under Section 69A. Under Rules 4 to 6 of the Blocking Rules, central and state agencies have nodal officers who send blocking requests to the Designated Officer. Any person can approach a nodal officer, who forwards the request for blocking to the Designated Officer,” it said.
X has said the Centre’s actions threaten its business model that rests on people sharing lawful information. “The X platform derives value and revenue from its user base and the lawful content they generate. Thus, unlawful or unjustified information blocking orders cause harm to X and its ability to operate. Respondents’ ultra vires actions of issuing information blocking orders, without following due process of law, aggrieve X by violating X’s Article 14 rights and detrimentally impacting its business.”
The government’s counter, according to sources, is that Section 79(3)(b) of the IT Act empowers it to notify intermediaries like X to remove unlawful content quickly and effectively. The sources added that Section 79(3)(b) is not dependent on Section 69A’s blocking process.
