"Contractual dispute:" Bombay High Court dismisses writ petition challenging Facebook's action of blocking Sanatan Sanstha page

The Bombay High Court at Goa on Monday dismissed a writ petition filed under Article 226 of the Constitution by a Public Charitable Trust Sanatan Sanstha challenging social media giant Facebook's action of blocking the pages created by the Sanstha (Sanatan Sanstha v. Union of India & Ors.)..The Court ruled that the issue involved was a contractual dispute and not maintainable under writ jurisdiction of the court. "At least, prima facie, the dispute regards blocking or unblocking of the petitioner's Facebook pages, appears to be governed by the contractual relationship between the petitioner and respondent and normally purely contractual disputes between private parties cannot be adjudicated in proceedings under Article 226 of the Constitution of India," the Court said. Through its writ petition, Sanatan Sanstha had sought orders directing the Central government to ensure that Facebook is compelled to unblock the pages they had blocked. Directions were also sought to the Ministry of Information & Broadcasting (MIB) and Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MEITY) to establish a government mechanism to regulate social media platforms and to take proper penal action against Facebook..Advocate Sanjiv Punalekar informed the Court that the Sanstha would not be pressing for directions to Facebook for unblocking of pages or to the Central government to establish a mechanism..A Bench of Justices MS Sonak and MS Jawalkar submitted that the establishment of a mechanism and penalising were matters of policy and it was not for the Court to direct the government.The Court also opined that prima-facie the case under Article 226 of the Constitution seeking directions to MEITY and Facebook to unblock the petitioner's Facebook Pages may not be maintainable as the dispute regarding blocking or unblocking appeared to be covered by contractual dispute..The Bench also commented that Punalekar was unable to point out any provision under the Information Technology (IT) Act based on which the Sanstha could insist on maintaining a Facebook page without agreeing to be bound by the contractual terms that may have been proposed. .The Court directed the Sanstha to approach the appropriate forum in the event there was some breach of contractual relationship with Facebook and proceeded to dismiss the petition. .The Sanstha stated that they had created the Facebook pages about 10 years ago to spread the essence of their spirituality and allied matters.Their grievance arose after Facebook blocked those pages allegedly without assigning any reasons or without there being any order from the government agencies. .Through their petition, they pleaded that the action of blocking their pages by Facebook amounted to violation of constitutional rights of the Sanstha which the Central government was duty-bound to protect.They also stated that the action of Facebook amounted to usurpation of powers which only the Central government had..During the pendency of the petition, the Sanstha received a communication from Facebook which included the 'Community Standards' of Facebook. As per the standards, Facebook claimed to have a right to permanently disable access to any account that breaches community standards. .After this communication, the Sanstha amended their petition and also raised a challenge to the provisions of Section 79 of the IT Act as being violative of the fundamental rights enshrined in the Constitution.They also sought for a declaration that the entities exercising "right to edit the material/ contents" beyond the blocking of rights available to Courts and Central government are not intermediaries. .The Bench observed that that once the constitutional validity of a provision has been upheld by the Supreme Court, normally there is no question of the High Court again entertaining a petition questioning the constitutional validity of the very same provision simply because some new ground is being urged or because some old ground is being presented in a different package..The Bench also observed that the proceeding before it was not for breach of contract where Facebook was claiming immunity under Section 79, therefore there was no reason for the Court to grant the declaratory relief prayed for by the Sanstha..[Read judgment]