Nithyakalyani Narayanan. V
The Karnataka High Court has dismissed a plea filed by Twitter Inc, which challenged several blocking and take-down orders issued by the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) under Section 69A of the Information Technology Act. The court held that the company’s plea had no merits and imposed a fine of ₹50 lakh on the company. The fine has to be paid to the Karnataka State Legal Services Authority within 45 days. The court also refused 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 billion dollar company” Justice Krishna S Dixit remarked while pronouncing the order.
The MeitY served Twitter a letter explaining the consequences of non-compliance and its intention to initiate criminal proceedings against the Chief Compliance Officer of Twitter. The letter also granted a final opportunity to comply with the blocking orders, but if that is not followed, the company will lose its safe harbour immunity as per Section 79(1) of the IT Act. Twitter approached the court after receiving the letter.
Twitter argued that “If on my platform 1200 accounts are blocked even when material is appearing in print and TV, then it is causing prejudice,” and claimed that the blocking orders are “procedurally and substantially deficient of the provision” and “demonstrate excessive use of powers and are disproportionate”.
They further claimed that if the content does not fall within the prohibition of Section 69(A), then it cannot be blocked. Such blocking orders affect the primary and intermediary rights of the user. Hence, it was their case that intermediaries are entitled to challenge the authority’s blocking orders.
The compliance mechanisms and rules followed by US, UK and EU were compared before the court to claim that a particular content can be taken down immediately when it is abhorrent, without notice. In other cases, procedural fairness has to be ensured.
The opposing party argued that the foreign company cannot avail any remedy of fundamental rights guaranteed under Article 19 (1) and Article 21 of the Indian Constitution.
The counsel for the government highlighted that news content appearing in newspapers is according to the discretion of the respective newspaper but on an intermediary like Twitter, anyone can put up a post with no discretion. Referring to Section 79 of the IT Act, it was argued that “Intermediary is bound to obey the orders which the designate authority/agency which the government fixes from time to time.”
The Centre also reminded that the accounts made on Twitter are not used to carry out any business but are solely for expressing their views.
The operative portion of the judgement reads as, “In the above circumstances this petition being devoid of merits is liable to be dismissed with exemplary costs and accordingly it is. Petitioner is levied with an exemplary cost of ₹50 lakh payable to the Karnataka State Legal Service Authority, Bengaluru, within 45 days. If delay is brooked, it attracts an additional levy of ₹5,000 per day.“
Name of the Case: Twitter Inc. v. Union of India
Bench: Justice Krishna S Dixit