Breaking | Karnataka High Court Dismisses Twitter's Plea Against Centre's Account Blocking Orders With ₹50 Lakh Cost

The Karnataka High Court has dismissed the petition filed by Twitter Inc, challenging the blocking orders issued to it by the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeiTY) under Section 69A of the Information Technology Act.A single judge bench of Justice Krishna S Dixit also imposed cost of Rs. 50 lakh on the microblogging platform, citing its conduct. It also refused Twitter's request to stay the operation of the order."Your client (Twitter) was given notices and your client did not comply...Punishment for non-compliance is 7 years imprisonment and unlimited fine. That also did not deter your client. So you have not given any reason why you delayed compliance, more than a year of delay...then all of sudden you comply and approach the Court. You are not a farmer but a billon dollar company," the Bench said while pronouncing the verdict.Court had framed eight issues in the matter. First, on the issue of locus standi. This has been answered in your Twitter's favour. Second is whether there is nexus between blocking order and the reasons behind such order. This is held against Twitter. "On proportionality whether blocking should be tweet specific or period specific, I have held against you," Justice Dixit said.The bench also refused to issue Guidelines to Centre, as sought by Advocate Manu Kulkarni for Twitter, for exercise of its powers under Section 69A. "In the above circumstances the petition being devoid of merits is liable to be dismissed with exemplary cost and accordingly is dismissed. Petitioner is levied with exemplary cost of Rs 50 lakh payable to the Karnataka State Legal services Authority, within 45 days and if delay is brooked it will attract an additional of Rs 5,000 per day," Court ordered.Story to be updated with judgment details.Twitter's ArgumentsTwitter had claimed that the blocking orders are "procedurally and substantially deficient of the provision" and "demonstrate excessive use of powers and are disproportionate".In June, last year, MeitY served Twitter a letter setting out serious consequences of non-compliance, including, of initiating criminal proceedings against Twitter's Chief Compliance Officer, and granted last opportunity to comply with a series of Blocking Orders. Failing to do so would lead to Twitter losing its safe harbor immunity as available to it under Section 79(1) of the IT Act, the MeiTY warned. Following which the microblogging platform approached the court.Twitter asked how it could be directed to block user accounts and muffle their freedom of speech, when news relating to these events were freely circulated by Television and print media. "If on my platform 1200 accounts are blocked even when material is appearing in print and TV, then it is causing prejudice," Senior Advocate Arvind Datar had submitted for the microblogging platform.Twitter claimed that if any particular account is against the interests of India, it is the first to act against it. However, when the government wishes to prevent certain accounts, it must follow statutory procedure.Datar had submitted that as per the jurisprudence laid down in the Shreya Singhal case, if Centre finds some tweet objectionable, it has to send a notice to the account holder asking why the tweet should not be pulled down. He had argued that blocking user-accounts would be a violation of freedom of speech. Further, blocking orders demonstrate excessive use of powers and are disproportionate. "At the heart of Article 19 is the right to criticise... because we are a democracy," he had submitted.Further, it was argued that the procedure laid down under Section 69 of the Information Technology Act has to be followed. Section 69 gives the Central and State government the power to issue directions for the interception, monitoring, or decryption of any information through any computer resource. He submitted that this Section does not allow for 'wholesale' blocking of accounts.Datar had argued that an objectionable account should be stopped only when it is a chronic/ repeat offender else, it will go against the principle of proportionality, affecting the social networking platform's business.Senior Advocates Datar and Ashok Haranhali appearing for Twitter had further submitted that if content is not falling within the prohibition under Section 69(A), it cannot be blocked. They added that such blocking orders not only affect the rights of the primary user but also the intermediary. Thus, it was their case that intermediaries are entitled to challenge the authority's blocking orders.Advocate Manu Kulkarni for Twitter had in its rejoinder to the reply of the Union Government argued that “Even when Article 19 (1) is not invokable, as a corollary to Article 19 (2) as well, still the concept of reasonableness in Article 19 (incorporated in Section 69A as interpreted by the Apex court in Shreya Singhal case) would avail to his client." Thus the petition before the High Court was maintainable, he had said.A comparison of...

Breaking | Karnataka High Court Dismisses Twitter's Plea Against Centre's Account Blocking Orders With ₹50 Lakh Cost

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