BENGALURU: The Karnataka High Court on Thursday stayed the single judge’s order imposing an exemplary cost of Rs 50 lakh on X Corp (formerly Twitter) while dismissing its petition against multiple blocking orders issued by the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology, subject to depositing Rs 25 lakh cost in the court within a week. The stay does not apply to the dismissal of X Corp’s petition.
The single-judge bench dismissed Twitter’s petition on June 30, 2023, and imposed an exemplary cost of Rs 50 lakh. It was made payable to Karnataka State Legal Services Authority within 45 days from that day, with any delay attracting an additional levy of Rs 5,000 per day.
Hearing the X Corp’s appeal mainly on the cost imposed, a division bench of Chief Justice Prasanna B Varale and Justice MGS Kamal passed the interim order staying the cost imposed by the single judge bench, but subject to a deposit of Rs 25 lakh in the court until the next hearing.
‘X Corp failed to show compliance with orders’
On depositing Rs 25 lakh, the order of the single judge would be stayed by way of interim order until the next hearing, the court said while permitting the Union Government to file a statement of objections as well as an application for vacation of the interim order.
“The single judge, in his detailed reasoning, found that the petition seriously suffered on account of inordinate delay and latches and the culpable conduct of the petitioner (X Corp),” the court said, while orally observing that the single judge had rightly imposed exemplary costs for not showing regard to the law of the country by complying with the blocking orders after one year and four months from the date of issue of such orders and nothing wrong with it. Further, the court said it can be safely said the single judge found that in spite of the opportunity granted to X Corp, it was unable to show dutiful compliance with the orders passed by the competent authorities, the court noted.
X Corp’s counsel had submitted before the single judge that there was due compliance with the order of the competent authority and the company for specific reasons had not complied with the blocking order with respect to only a few URLs out of 39 URLs. The single judge awarded the cost to be deposited with the third party. Such direction may not be sustainable in view of the judgment of the apex court, the counsel argued.
The counsel for the Centre submitted that X Corp failed to place on record any specific materials showing compliance on time. If time is granted, the relevant materials will be submitted for the satisfaction of the court in support of the findings of the single judge.
Noting that US-based X Corp adopted a tactical approach to delay compliance with the Union Government’s blocking orders showed its intent to remain non-compliant with Indian law, the single judge had dismissed the latter’s petition questioning certain blocking orders by imposing the exemplary cost of Rs 50 lakh.
Before the single judge, the X Corp challenged the orders issued to block 39 URLs among a series of orders issued under Section 69A of the I-T Act between February 2021 and February 2022 to block 1,474 accounts/URLs and 175 tweets from being accessed by the public, besides certain information which included suspension of whole accounts on Twitter. The blocking orders were issued from February 2, 2021, to February 28, 2022.