The Kerala High has ordered to lift the blocking of independent Malayalam digital news organisation NoCap's Facebook page, after deleting certain comments notified by the Director General of Police and State Police Chief.

Justice Ziyad Rahman A.A passed the direction in a petition preferred by journalist Hyder Ali K, the Chief Editor of NoCap who challenged the blocking of the Facebook page of media platform.

The petitioner had submitted that they have received an in-app notification from NoCap's Facebook page on September 28 that its content in India is restricted pursuant to notice from the Government of India/ Law Enforcement under Section 79(3) of the Information technology Act, 2000. It was further stated that the Facebook page was blocked without publication of the order to block the page and the same was not disclosed to the petitioner.

The Court had previously sought the response of the Centre and the State on whether any orders were issued to Meta Platforms for blocking the Facebook "NoCap".

When the matter was taken up, the government pleader informed that Court that Meta Platforms was only instructed to remove certain harmful comments in some of the posts made by the petitioner and no instruction was given to block the Facebook page as such.

Recording the same, the Court ordered that the petitioner shall be permitted to operate the Facebook page after deleting the comments notified by the third respondent (Director General of Police and State Police Chief).

"In the light of the above it is ordered that the petitioner shall be permitted to operate the Facebook page after deleting the comments notified by the 3rd respondent or the officers subordinate to them. The necessary steps in this regard shall be taken by the 5th respondent and the petitioner may communicate the order to the 5th respondent." Court ordered.

Counsel for Petitioner: S. Prasanth, Varsha Bhaskar, Malavika K