Suspension Of Social Media Accounts: Delhi High Court Grants Time To Centre To Respond On Draft Regulatory Measures

The Delhi High Court on Wednesday granted further time to the Centre to respond on the draft regulatory measures, if any, relating to social media platforms including de-platforming of users.

Justice Yashwant Varma was hearing a bunch of pleas wherein various petitioners have approached the Court over suspension of their social media accounts, including the petition filed by Senior Advocate Sanjay Hegde.

Counsel appearing for the Centre, Kirtiman Singh told the Court that while the amendment to the Rules will take place at "some point of time", however the same will be prospective in nature.

"The amendment to the Rules will take place some point of time, we don't really know. The only difficulty is it will be prospective," Singh told the Court.

On this, Justice Varma orally remarked thus:

"Why will the disposal of any grievances which are existing on the record, why will they not be entitled to be disposed of in terms of Rules…that's not retrospective application of Rules. Rules which apply on the date of disposal of application that's what will govern."

Accordingly, Singh sought time to respond in the matter and to inform the Court in case of any development.

"Your lordships may fix it for hearing. If the amendment comes in between, then we will be in a position to bring it on record. List it in a few weeks, if there is some development, we will come back," Singh said.

The Court thus opined that once the scope of regulatory power that the Centre proposes to invoke is known, then only the Court will know the contours of its jurisdiction to deal with the challenge in question.

"…we also want to understand if there is any regulatory mechanism which they propose to implement, whether that will have an impact on this batch of matters," Justice Varma said.

The matter will now be heard on December 19.

The Centre had earlier told the Court that Significant Social Media Intermediaries (SSMIs) are expected to issue prior notice to the user before taking any action on the user account and that failure to comply with the same may amount to a violation of Information Technology (Intermediaries guidelines) Rules 2021.

It had also said that the platforms must respect the fundamental rights of the citizens and should not take down the account itself or completely suspend the user account in all cases.

Case Title: Wokeflix v. UOI and other connected matters