The Indian government is set to file objections to a lawsuit by Elon Musk-owned X Corp., formerly Twitter, which challenges the legality of Section 79(3)(b) of the IT Act and the Sahyog Portal, arguing they enable unlawful censorship.
In an oral direction given on March 27, Justice M Nagaprasanna said, "The Union of India submits that objections will be filed in the next half an hour. The senior counsel (appearing for X Corp) will go through the objections and make his submissions."
Solicitor General of India Tushar Mehta, and senior counsel MN Kumar appeared for the Centre, while senior advocate KG Raghavan appeared for X Corp.
Raghavan also requested the court to extend the order in which it was recorded that Centre has not taken action against X Corp for not joining Sahyog Portal.
Mehta responded saying, "Mr Raghavan knows, nothing can be done. The maximum that can be done, is that they lose safe harbour."
In its petition, X Corp said that the government is misinterpreting Section 79(3)(b) to issue takedown orders that do not adhere to the procedures prescribed under Section 69A, which the Supreme Court has recognised as the only valid legal framework for blocking online content.
As per Section 79(3)(b), an intermediary can lose its safe harbour, a provision that protects platforms from liability for third-party content, if it fails to block access when informed by the government.
The matter will now be heard on April 4.
A major contention raised by X is the introduction of the Sahyog Portal, an online system managed by the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) that enables state police and various government departments to issue takedown requests directly—without adhering to the due process under Section 69A.
X asserts that the portal creates a parallel framework for content censorship, allowing thousands of officials to order content removals without transparency or oversight.
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