NEW DELHI: A authorized battle between Elon Musk‘s social media platform X and the Centre intensified on Tuesday, after X’s lawyer accused the federal government of permitting “every Tom, Dick, and Harry” official to situation content material takedown orders. The comment sparked robust pushback from authorities’s authorized staff, information company Reuters reported.The remark got here throughout a listening to within the Karnataka excessive court docket, the place X is difficult a government-run web site it describes as a “censorship portal.” During the listening to, X’s lawyer KG Raghavan cited a current case the place the Indian Railways demanded elimination of a video exhibiting a automotive on railway tracks, a video X mentioned certified as information.“This is the danger, My Lord, that is done now, if every Tom, Dick, and Harry officer is authorised,” Raghavan was quoted as saying by Reuters.The phrase drew instant objection from Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, who mentioned: “Officers are not Tom, Dick, or Harry … they are statutory functionaries. No social media intermediary can expect completely unregulated functioning.”Earlier in March, the Centre had strongly objected to social media platform’s description of the ‘Sahyog’ portal as a “censorship” device, calling the allegation “unfortunate” and “condemnable” in an in depth affidavit submitted to the Karnataka excessive court docket.In response to X Corp’s authorized problem to India’s content-blocking mechanisms, the federal government had argued that the platform had misinterpret provisions of the Information Technology Act, notably Sections 69A and 79(3)(b).X Corp contended that Section 79(3)(b) doesn’t enable the federal government to situation content material takedown orders with out following the safeguards laid out underneath Section 69A and the Supreme Court’s judgment within the Shreya Singhal case. The Centre, nonetheless, asserted that Section 69A clearly offers for blocking orders underneath particular circumstances, with applicable checks and procedures.The authorities clarified that Section 79(3)(b) solely defines the obligations of intermediaries and that failure to adjust to authorized directives may result in dropping protected harbour protections underneath Rule 7 of the 2021 IT Rules. It accused X Corp of conflating takedown “notices” issued underneath Section 79(3)(b) with formal “blocking orders” underneath Section 69A—two distinct processes, as beforehand acknowledged by the Supreme Court.The Centre additional emphasised that X, as a international industrial entity, has no inherent proper to publish or defend third-party content material underneath Indian legislation. Citing a earlier Karnataka excessive court docket ruling in a case involving Twitter, the federal government reiterated that Articles 19 and 21 of the Indian Constitution don’t prolong to such entities.With its submitting, the Centre bolstered its stance that India’s authorized framework on content material moderation is lawful, balanced, and never indicative of presidency overreach.
