Govt Vs Twitter: Karnataka HC Allows Social Media Platform To File ‘Blocking Orders’ In A Sealed Envelope

The Karnataka High Court (HC) on Tuesday (July 26) allowed microblogging platform Twitter to furnish various ‘blocking orders’ issued by the union government before it in a sealed envelope. 

A single-judge bench of Justice Krishna S Dixit also ordered Twitter to share the documents with the counsel of the government. 

The directions came during the hearing of a writ petition filed by Twitter challenging the legality of a series of ‘blocking orders’ issued by authorities under the Information Technology Act, 2000. 

Arguing on behalf of Twitter, advocate Mukul Rohatgi said that the government had failed to record reasons for ordering the closure of accounts.

“We are answerable to the account holders (as to) why their accounts are blocked. If this continues, our whole business will close”, Rohatgi was quoted as saying.

In response, the government’s counsel called for deferring the hearing, saying that Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, who was supposed to appear for the hearing, had contracted coronavirus.

Agreeing to the government’s request, the HC adjourned the matter till August 25.

In addition, the government’s counsel also sought in-camera proceedings, which was also agreed to by the Karnataka HC. Essentially, in-camera proceedings are conducted in private, without the presence of public and press.

Government vs Twitter

Earlier this month, Twitter moved the High Court seeking quashing of 39 ‘blocking orders’ issued by the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) under Section 69A of the IT Act.

These 39 orders were part of a clutch of orders issued by authorities to Twitter between February 2021 and February 2022 that sought to take down 175 tweets and 1,400 accounts.

In its plea, Twitter claimed that the government was increasingly ordering the platform to block accounts without informing it about the specific tweets that warranted such action. 

The plea also claimed that several of the URLs that the government sought to block contained ‘political and journalistic content’, adding that ‘blocking of such information is (was) a gross violation of the freedom of speech guaranteed to citizen-users of the platform’.

According to a report, the legal demands by the Indian government and Indian courts to get content removed from Twitter saw a 48,000% jump between 2014 and 2020. 

This is not the first time that the two sides have sparred against each other. The Centre has repeatedly criticised Twitter for not complying fully with the new IT rules. Earlier this month, IT Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw noted that the government was in the process of holding social media firms accountable.

Last month, it was reported that the union government ordered the take down of a slew of tweets last year that purportedly criticised internet censorship in the country.