X vs Centre: Karnaraka HC to hear matter on April 5 as Elon Musk’s platform challenges govt’s order to block content

The Karnataka High Court has posted the hearing of Elon Musk's X Corp (formerly Twitter), which challenged the government's order of taking down and blocking content, on April 3.

The matter was being heard by the Karnataka High Court.

X, the Elon Musk owned platform, challenged the central government's order for taking down or blocking content via 'Sahyog' portal. The matter was adjourned today after a request by Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, reported Bar and Bench.

X sues Centre

Last week, Elon Musk's X filed a petition at the Karnataka High Court challenging the Indian government’s use of Section 79(3)(b) of the Information Technology Act.

X in its petition said that the government's order not only paves way for an illegal parallel content-blocking process, but also violates the 2015 judgment of the Supreme Court on the Shreya Singhal case.

The 2015 judgment, that X referred to, said that the content could just be blocked through a competent court order or under Section 69A’s structured process.

According to Section 79(3)(b), an intermediary can lose its safe harbour – which protects these platforms from responsibility of third party content – if it does not remove or disable access to content after being informed by the “appropriate” government or its agency.

X has said that this provision does not make the government have the rights to block content. The Elon Musk-owned company has argued that government authorities are misusing this section to bypass the protection that Section 69A provides platforms and arbitrarily removing content.

X wants ‘Sahyog’ protection

Additionally, X has sought protection for not onboarding an employee on the government's Sahyog portal, which was established by the Indian Cyber Crime Coordination Centre (I4C) to “streamline” Section 79(3)(b) orders.

X has said that the Sahyog portal is a “Censorship Portal”.

Elon Musk's platform has argued that no provision in the law allows the creation of the Sahyog portal or appoint an official for such a portal.