BENGALURU: In a setback to X Corp, the Karnataka High Court on Wednesday rejected its petition seeking to declare that Section 79(3)(b) of the Information Technology Act, 2000, does not confer the authority on the Government of India to issue information-blocking orders.
The X Corp has prayed the court to restrain the Union government from taking coercive or prejudicial action against it for not joining the Censorship (Sahyog) Portal.
The court observed that the content of social media needs to be regulated and its a 'must', more so in cases of offences against women, failing which the right to dignity as ordained in the constitution gets railroaded.
"Information and communication, its spread or speed, has never been left unchecked and unregulated. It has been a subject matter of regulation. As and when the technology develops from messengers to postal aids, to the age of WhatsApp, Instagram and Snapchat, all have been regulated by regulatory regimes subsisting then and subsisting today, both globally and locally," the court observed while pronouncing the order.
Justice M Nagaprasanna read out the summary of the order that was pronounced on Wednesday. The copy of the order will be uploaded on the website on Thursday, the judge said.
It was contended by the X Corp that MeitY has directed all central ministries, all state governments, all states' deputy generals of police, 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.
"MeitY also provided all central and state government agencies a 'Template Blocking Order' to use to issue these unlawful information blocking orders. These ultra vires actions circumvent Section 69A and violate the Supreme Court's decision in Shreya Singha. As a result of MeitY's directive, the ministries of the union government and agencies of state government have issued "notifications" purporting to empower their officers to issue information-blocking orders under Section 79(3)(b ), in circumvention of the Section 69A process," X Corp claimed.
The X Corp further stated, on MeitY's instructions, the Ministry of Home Affairs has also created an online Censorship Portal (Sahyog) where central and state agencies and local police officers can issue these unlawful Section 79(3)(b) information blocking orders, outside the Section 69A process.
"The Censorship Portal creates an impermissible parallel mechanism to Section 69A, but without the procedures or safeguards of Section 69A, in violation of the Constitution, IT Act, Blocking Rules, and the Supreme Court's ruling," it said.
The Union Government contended before the High Court that any entity, be it X Corp or another, has to be bound by all laws of the country.
"The ultimate conclusion of the entire scheme of things is that the petitioner is an intermediary. It is like a noticeboard in a village. I can go and post some good quotations, somebody can post some abuse, and someone can post some defamatory material. The petitioner says it is not responsible for the action. To protect, there is a safe harbour clause, which means, suppose somebody posts defamatory material, I file a suit against that gentleman as well as X, and they will be protected under Section 79(3)(b) of the Information Technology Act," the Union Government argued.