'Will Not Represent Tik Tok In Court': Senior Advocates Mukul Rohatgi And Abhishek Singhvi

Two Senior Advocates, Mukul Rohatgi and Dr. Abhishek Manu Singhvi, have refused to appear for TikTok in the Courts.

 "I will not be appearing for TikTok. I had appeared for them in a case one year ago and won in Supreme Court. I don't intend to appear in this one," Singhvi reportedly told ANI.  Former Attorney General Mukul Rohatgi has also told ANI that he won't appear for TikTok in the court. 

Singhvi had appeared for the Bytedance (India) Technology Pvt. Ltd., which owns the mobile application, when it challenged the Madras High Court order directing prohibition of download of Application. The Court had directed the Madras High Court consider the objections against the ex-parte ban imposed on popular video app 'Tik Tok'. After this order, the Madras HC heard the matter and vacated the order directing prohibition of download of the application.

In an extraordinary move, the Central Government on Monday had stated that it will be blocking 59 mobile apps, mostly Chinese, including Tik Tok, ShareIt, UC  Browser, Cam Scanner, Xender etc. The Ministry of Electronics & Information Technology has decided to invoked powers under Section 69A of the Information Technology Act, 2000, read with the relevant provisions of the Information Technology (Procedure and Safeguards for Blocking of Access of Information by Public) Rules 2009 to block these apps, citing threat to sovereignty and integrity of India, defence of India, security of state and public order. 

Today, the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) has reportedly ordered all telecom operators and internet service providers (ISPs) to immediately block these 59 Applications. Responding to these reports, the Tik Tok had issued the following statement in Social Media: