The order is of most use to a user who cannot explain the platform's action himself. Take a business whose YouTube channel is hijacked. The attacker changes the recovery details and streams a cryptocurrency scam from the channel, and YouTube terminates it for the policy breach. The owner broke no rule. Each safeguard in the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021 assumes that the account holder and the person who posted the content are the same. In a hijacking they are different people, and the Rules make no provision for that case.

The remedies on paper

YouTube's help page on hacked channels offers recovery only for incidents within the previous nine months, and only after the linked Google Account has been recovered. A Community Guidelines termination may be appealed within one year, and YouTube's termination policy allows two appeals in that period. Under Rule 3(2)(a)(i), as amended by G.S.R. 120(E) on 10 February 2026, a Grievance Officer must acknowledge a complaint within twenty-four hours and resolve it within seven days. An appeal lies to the GAC within thirty days under Rule 3A(3). The Committee must endeavour to decide it within thirty calendar days.

Claims against the attacker exist as well. Section 43 of the Information Technology Act, 2000 allows compensation for unauthorised access to a computer system, and Section 66C punishes the fraudulent use of another person's password. These provisions rarely help in practice, because attackers are usually anonymous or abroad.

Writ relief against the platform is narrow. In Swati alias Smriti Negi v. Union of India, decided in August 2026, the Uttarakhand High Court refused to direct YouTube to restore a channel removed after three copyright strikes. Article 226, the Court said, "cannot be invoked for settling contractual dispute." The GAC is therefore the forum that matters. The difficulty lies in what a hijacked owner can argue before it.

Notice goes to the attacker

Rule 4(8) governs removals that a significant social media intermediary makes on its own accord under Rule 3(1)(b). Before acting, the platform must notify "the user who has created, uploaded, shared, disseminated, or modified" the information and explain its reasons. That user must also receive a reasonable opportunity to dispute the action.

In a hijacking, the scam stream was uploaded by the attacker. The notice is sent to the account, and the account is under the attacker's control. Recovery email addresses and phone numbers are often changed at the start of a takeover, so the owner may never see the notice or the chance to respond. Rule 4(8) was drafted on the footing that the uploader and the account holder are one person. A hijacking is the one situation where they are not.

Termination without non-compliance

Rule 3(1)(c)(i) obliges intermediaries to inform users that "in case of non-compliance" with their rules or user agreement, the platform may terminate or suspend access. The power depends on the default by the user as described by the rules. Although none of the defaults is committed by the owner whose account was stollen.

It can be argued before the Grievance Officer and the GAC that terminating a channel for content posted by an attacker is beyond what Rule 3(1)(c)(i) contemplates. There is support provided by Rule 3(1)(n), which requires intermediaries to respect the rights guaranteed by Articles 14, 19 and 21 of the Constitution of India. This argument appears to be untested and unaddressed, and I have found no such GAC decision or judgment on contemplating this point. YouTube safest answer would be that its terms make the account holder responsible for the security of the account, therefore a successful hack is itself a breach. Than the GAC would have to decide whether a lapse in account security, more or less, justifies the permanent loss of a channel and everything on it.

The evidence expires before the appeal ends

According to Rule 3(1)(g) an intermediary is required that removes or disables access to information to preserve it along with associated records, for 180 days "for investigation purposes." Although a court or a lawfully authorised agency may require a comparatively longer period. YouTube only allows one year to appeal for an account termination. If an owner who uses the full year given by YouTube itself, they shall find that the duty to keep the login records and the content was expired six months earlier. This termination also ends the owner's ability to download its YouTube content, therefore the preserved copy may be the only source left with the rightful owner of the content.

Although there is a partial remedy that exist to it. The owner shall file a complaint on the National Cyber Crime Reporting Portal as soon as he or his manager discovers the hack. The investigating agency shall then issue a written order under Rule 3(1)(j), by which the platform is required to provide the information under its control within seventy-two hours. After this the agency may also require to preserve the information beyond 180 days under Rule 3(1)(g). Although neither of the step restores the channel, but both keep the evidence of the hack available for the appeal.

What the GAC can now ask for

This is where the case of Prakash Kumar Singh helps a hijacked owner the most. Which orders creation of a committee that can direct a platform to justify its action, which can ask YouTube for the security history of the account terminated. That history shall show the precise information about the devices and locations used to sign in before and after the takeover, combined with the time when the recovery details were changed. Because of which the security alerts Google sent to the owner can be compared against it. It should also be noted that after the Delhi High Court's order, the GAC cannot close such an appeal because the platform on which the account was has failed to explain itself.

The delay associated in this is a separate problem. In Subodh v. Union of India, a creator's appeal against a permanent Instagram ban had been pending before the GAC for more than sixty days. On 18 May 2026 the Delhi High Court directed the Committee to decide about the case within thirty days. For a business that earns advertising revenue from its channel, every month of that delay is lost income. Such inconsistencies and delays cannot be normalised as it creats grave psychological and emotional suffering for the creators and account owners.

Two amendments

There are 2 amendments I would like to propose that can create a change.

The first is a modest amendment. Rule 3(1)(g) could require preservation until every appeal against the removal, including the appeal to the GAC, has been finally decided. During that period the owner should be allowed to download the preserved content.

The second amendment concerns interim relief. Rule 3A gives the GAC no express power to pass interim orders. Where an owner produces evidence of a documented hack, such as Google security alerts and a cybercrime complaint dated before the termination, the Committee should be able to direct the restoration of the channel until the appeal is decided. At the least, it should be able to order access to the content. This would need an amendment to Rule 3A. It would also follow the reasoning in Prakash Kumar Singh, since a body that can demand answers from a platform should be able to protect the appellant while those answers are awaited.

Views are personal.