Karnataka High Court refuses to stay govt order to Twitter to block accounts, imposes Rs 50 lakh cost

The High Court of Karnataka has refused to stay the blocking order issued by the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeiTY) to Twitter Inc under Section 69A of the Information Technology Act.

Rejecting the petition filed by the microblogging site, the Single-Judge Bench of Justice Krishna S. Dixit further imposed a cost of Rs 50 lakh on the social platform for its conduct. 

The Bench rebuked the counsel appearing for Twitter for not complying with the notices issued to it, noting that punishment for non-compliance was seven-year imprisonment and unlimited fine.

It said the petitioner did not submit any reason for delaying the compliance by more than a year. Then all of a sudden, the petitioner complied and approached the Court, noted the High Court, remarking that Twitter was not a farmer, but a billion dollar company.

The High Court said it had framed eight issues in the matter. Regarding locus standi, it said this has been answered in Twitter’s favour. Regarding the nexus between blocking order and the reasons behind such an order, the Single-Judge Bench ruled against Twitter. 

Regarding the proportionality on whether blocking should be tweet specific or period specific, the High Court noted that it had ruled against the social media platform.

The Bench also refused to issue guidelines to the Centre, as sought by Advocate Manu Kulkarni for Twitter, in exercise of its powers under Section 69A.

Dismissing the petition for being ‘devoid of merits,’ the High Court directed the petitioner to deposit an exemplary cost of Rs 50 lakh to the Karnataka State Legal Services Authority (KSLSA) within 45 days, adding that delay in depositing the fine would attract an additional amount of Rs 5,000 per day.

The petitioner had claimed that the blocking orders issued by the MeiTY were ‘procedurally’ and ‘substantially deficient’ of the provisions under the IT Act, besides demonstrating ‘excessive’ use of powers and being ‘disproportionate’.

The Ministry had issued notice to the microblogging site in June 2022, citing serious consequences of non-compliance. It had directed Twitter to comply with a series of blocking orders, warning that non-compliance of government orders would result in initiation of criminal proceedings against Twitter’s Chief Compliance Officer. 

The Union of India further warned Twitter that if it did not comply with the government orders, it would lose its safe harbour immunity as available to it under Section 79 (1) of the IT Act. 

Twitter moved the court asking as to how it could be directed to block user accounts and muffle their freedom of speech, when news relating to these events were being freely circulated by the print and electronic media. 

Appearing for the microblogging site, Senior Advocate Arvind Datar had submitted that if any particular account was against the interests of India, it was the first to act against it. However, when the government wished to prevent certain accounts, it had to follow statutory procedure.