BENGALURU: The Karnataka High Court on Friday dismissed the petition of US-based X Corp, formerly known as Twitter Inc, questioning certain blocking orders of the Union Government and imposed an exemplary cost of Rs 50 lakh on the company.
The court noted that X Corp demonstrably adopted a tactical approach to delay compliance with the Union Government’s blocking orders which shows its intent to remain non-compliant with Indian law.
“This petition is devoid of merits and is liable to be dismissed. The petitioner is levied with an exemplary cost of Rs 50 lakh payable to the Karnataka State Legal Services Authority within 45 days. If there is a delay in payment, it will attract an additional levy of Rs 5,000 per day,” said Justice Krishna S Dixit in his order.
He pointed out that the blocking orders have been implemented by the petitioner with a clandestine caveat of reserving the right to challenge, which is a classic case of speculative litigation.
X Corp challenged the orders to block 39 URLs under Section 69A of the I-T Act between February 2021 and February 2022 and 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 the culpable conduct of the petitioner, the court said there is a willful non-compliance with the orders for more than a year. Arguably, such an act amounts to an offence under Section 69A(3) of the Act. This petition was heard for days together, keeping at bay causes of native litigants who were waiting in silence. The petition is hit by delay and laches and therefore, no relief can be granted in equitable jurisdiction constitutionally vested under Articles 226 and 227, the court said.
Section 69A of the Act provides for blocking orders that can be issued in the interests of the country’s sovereignty and integrity, its defence, security, friendly relations with foreign countries or public order.
The court noted that non-compliance with orders issued under Section 69A has the potential to make the tweet more viral and spread to other platforms as well.
‘Up to Centre to make orders period specific’
One can imagine the damage caused when such objectionable tweets are allowed to be disseminated despite interdiction. The damage potential is directly proportional to the delay brooked in compliance with such orders, the court said.
On the apprehension of unfettered cyberspace, the court observed that people increasingly rely on social media than on their traditional counterparts to be aware of their surroundings and participate in discussions on political, economic and other issues which may strengthen democracy. However, on the flipside, the abuse of social media is, at times, antithetical to the democratic process.
On the argument of the petitioner that the court should issue guidelines to ensure that such blocking orders are issued for limited periods and susceptible to review by the authorities, the court said that it is open to the Centre to make the blocking orders period-specific.