Twitter Loses Case Against Centre's Takedown Order, Fined Rs 50 Lakh

The Karnataka High Court today dismissed social media giant Twitter's plea challenging directions of the Centre to remove some tweets and accounts. The court also imposed Rs 50 lakh costs on Twitter citing its conduct. It also refused Twitter's request to stay the operation of the order.

Twitter had moved Karnataka High Court in July last year challenging the blocking orders of the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology, calling the orders arbitrary and against freedom of speech and expression.

The High Court in April asked the central government why it had not given any reasons for blocking some accounts on Twitter in light of the takedown orders issued last year.

The court had then observed that the world was moving towards transparency and Section 69A of the Information Technology Act, through which the Centre made the takedown request, requires recording of reasons for takedowns.

The decision comes weeks after Twitter's ex-CEO and co-founder Jack Dorsey accused India of threatening to shut down the social media in the country unless it complied with orders to restrict accounts critical of the handling of farmer protests in 2021, a charge which Prime Minister Narendra Modi's government had called a "lie."

The court ruled that Twitter was served notices, to which it did not comply, Deputy Minister for Information Technology Rajeev Chandrasekhar said in a tweet. 

"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," the bench said during the verdict, the minister tweeted.

"You are not a farmer but a billion-dollar company," he said, quoting the bench.

On June 28 last year, the government wrote to Twitter asking it to comply with the orders by July 4, saying it will otherwise lose its legal shield as an intermediary.  

Losing the legal shield would have meant that Twitter executives could be fined and jailed for up to seven years in cases of IT law violation by users. Twitter responded by challenging some of the blocking orders in court.

The Centre had argued that Twitter being a foreign entity cannot claim enforcement of fundamental rights. Objecting to this, Twitter informed the court that it was invoking the writ jurisdiction for a violation of protocols prescribed under Section 69A of the IT Act. It also claimed in a rejoinder to the court that rights under Article 14 were available to foreign entities also.

The court then asked both Twitter and the Union government to clarify the issue of how Indian entities would be treated in the United States and foreign jurisdictions on such issues, before adjourning the hearing for two days later.

Twitter has claimed that the government was required to issue notice to the owners of the Twitter handles against whom blocking orders are issued. Twitter had said that it was barred from informing the account holders about the takedown orders of the government.