Global blocking orders by courts will legitimise practices of authoritarian governments: X to Delhi High Court

The 2019 court order to globally block online posts with excerpts from the biographical book ‘Godman to Tycoon – The Untold Story of Baba Ramdev' may set a dangerous precedent, X (formerly Twitter) told the Delhi High Court [Twitter International Company vs Swami Ramdev & Ors.]..X argued that such global blocking orders stifle public debate and legitimizes practices of authoritarian governments and also leads to misuse of litigation to suppress information made available in public interest."If courts in different countries can issue global blocking orders based on their local laws, it would result in a situation where the country with the most restrictive laws would dictate what content is available on the internet. This would lead to a situation where the internet displays only content that is allowed by the most restrictive country in the world. This cannot be allowed to happen. Such global takedowns also set a dangerous precedent that could legitimise practices of authoritarian governments, which do not fully value the rights to freedom of speech and access to information," it said. .The social media giant said this in the written submissions filed as part of its appeal against an October 2019 single-judge order directing the global blocking of certain excerpts from the book written by Priyanka Pathak Narain and published by Juggernaut Books.The order was passed after Ramdev filed a suit accusing the authors of publishing defamatory content against him in their book. He succeeded in getting an injunction in September 2018, when Justice Anu Malhotra restrained Juggernaut Books from publishing, distributing, and selling the book to the extent that it made “unfounded claims” against the Yoga guru.The 2018 order stated that if Juggernaut Books wished to publish and sell the biography, it has to delete portions of the book that dealt with the death of Baba Ramdev’s ally, Shankar Dev Ji, and the disappearance of his guru, Swami Yogananda.The 2018 verdict was challenged before a Division Bench by the book's publisher, Juggernaut Books. .However, while the publisher's appeal was pending, Ramdev filed another plea to restrain the online circulation of 'defamatory' excerpts from the book, since the 2018 verdict was still operational. In 2019, single-judge, Justice Prathiba Singh granted Ramdev relief by directing Twitter (as it was known then), Facebook, Google and YouTube to pull down any such references in the book from their platforms. Pertinently, the Court also said such content should be blocked globally, instead of only geo-blocking it in India. The Court said that such content on Ramdev must be globally blocked so that it is not accessible from India even through VPN or other such mechanisms.This 2019 directive has been challenged by X, Google and Facebook. The matter is slated to be heard by the High Court again on December 19..In its written submissions, X further noted that while Section 75 of the Information Technology Act (IT Act) does extend the law's application to offences committed outside India, such offences do not include defamation."The 'offences' under the IT Act are listed in Chapter XI (Sections 65 to 78). None of these Sections list 'defamation' as an offence," it was submitted.It added that geo-blocking is a sufficient remedy to tackle the concerns raised in this case. It further contended that the defamation laws of one country cannot be “superimposed” on other countries..Moreover, X argued that the 2019 order is contrary to the Supreme Court's decision in Bloomberg Television v. Zee Entertainment wherein it was held that courts should not grant ex-parte injunctions except in exceptional cases where the defence advanced by the respondent would undoubtedly fail at trial.X also submitted that 2019 order is futile, since the book is anyway available to be read or purchased online on other platforms in many countries.