[Twitter vs Centre] Failure To Give Notice To Account Holder Won't Vitiate Blocking Orders, Sovereignty At Stake: ASG Argues In Karnataka High Court

The Union of India on Thursday told the Karnataka High Court that Twitter is not entitled to any relief in the case filed by it challenging the account blocking orders passed by the Centre.

Additional Solicitor General R Sankarnarayanan appearing for the government submitted, “They are not entitled to protection under Article 19, as it is a foreign body corporate and foreign entity. Under Article 14, there is nothing arbitrary and section 69 (A) has been properly followed. Moreover, failure to give notice to an account holder is not a factor which would vitiate the entire proceedings. Therefore they are not entitled to any relief.”

Sankarnarayanan further submitted that Twitter is a "significant social media intermediary" as per IT Rules 2021 and contended that as per Rule 4 it is required to undertake additional due diligence.

"It is the duty of intermediary to provide details of account holder," he said adding that Twitter has not responded to their notices and meanwhile miscreant users continue to post inciting content.

“Somebody gives a tweet under the assumed name of Government of Pakistan about "Indian Occupied Kashmir, somebody says Prabhakaran is a hero and he is coming back. All this is so dangerous that it is going to incite violence…”

Concluding his arguments the ASG said “It is very difficult for a government to monitor and do it, to the extent it does, it requires support.”

The ASG also relied on the Apex court judgement in the case of Anuradha Bhashin vs Union of India, and said “The aim here is that you are entitled to do whatever you want on your platform, let all join, let there be as many view as there can be, let knowledge come from every quarter and let us enjoy it. But if it is going to affect the integrity, sovereignty of India or is going to create a public order, then naturally we will step in and either we will issue a take down notice or we will say block the account.”

In the previous hearing the government had questioned the maintainability of the petition filed by the Foreign company. It was said “The petitioner being a foreign company cannot avail any remedy of fundamental rights guaranteed under Article 19 (1) and Article 21 of the Constitution of India. The petitioner company does not have a legal mandate to espouse the cause of twitter users/account holders. For espousing there should be statutory enablement like the Industrial Disputes Act, Trade Unions Act, wherein the cause of workmen becomes legally espousable by others and more particularly trade unions.”

Referring to Section 79 of the Information Technology Act which pertains to exemption from liability of intermediary in certain cases, it was said that “Intermediary is bound to obey the orders which the designate authority/agency which the government fixes from time to time.”

It was also said that the twitter account holder is not carrying out business by writing out a twitter post nor canvassing for business, he is only expressing his view. "Therefore when the government seeks to block the account, the person who is actually aggrieved by blocking of the order is not carrying out business he is merely expressing himself. Therefore to say that you are covered under Article 19(1)(a) or 19 (1)(g) will not be correct. On the contrary the intermediary should distance itself from the account holder, if there is an act of omission or commission. He does not hold a brief for the account holder.”

Twitter has in its submission said that orders issued to it by the Central government for blocking certain user accounts directly affect those users' right to free speech and expression and thus, the orders must be communicated to them.

Further it has said that there could not be an omnibus general blocking order unless the content violates grounds mentioned in Section 69 (A) of the IT Act and added that any violation of the statutory provisions by the State directly infringes the affected party's right to equality before law under Article 14 of the Constitution.

It is also said that “If the content is not falling within the prohibition under Section 69(A), it cannot be blocked. Such blocking orders not only affect the rights of the primary user but also the intermediary, Thus, intermediaries are entitled to challenge the authority's blocking orders.”

The matter will be next heard on April 10.

Case Title: TWITTER, INC v. UNION OF INDIA

Case No: WP 13710/2022

Appearance: ASG R. Sankaranarayanan a/w Kumar M N for Respondents

Advocate Manu Kulkarni for Petitioner.