Complied with 91% of 29,118 takedown requests: X Corp to Karnataka High Court in Sahyog portal challenge

X Corp has told the Karnataka High Court that between January and June 2025, it received 29,118 requests from the Indian government for removal of posts and complied with 26,641 of them, amounting to a 91.49% compliance rate [X Corp Vs Union of India].

Thus, according to X Corp, its compliance record contradicts a High Court single- judge's conclusion in his September 24 verdict that the platform intends to disregard Indian law.

The figures were submitted as part of its writ appeal against the High Court’s September 24 judgment by which a single-judge of the High Court upheld the legality of the Central government’s Sahyog portal - an online platform used to issue content takedown orders to online intermediaries like X.

As per X Corp's appeal, use of Section 79(3)(b) of the Information Technology Act, 2000 (IT Act) and Rule 3(1)(d) of the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021 (2021 IT Rules) by various government agencies to issue takedown notices amounts to creation of an unlawful, parallel regime that bypasses the statutory and constitutionally validated process specified under Section 69A of the IT Act.

According to the social media giant, Section 69A and the accompanying 2009 Blocking Rules constitute the sole statutory mechanism for issuing information blocking orders in India.

This process, which was upheld by the Supreme Court in Shreya Singhal v. Union of India (2015), has extensive safeguards and requires orders to be issued only in specific, narrow grounds under Article 19(2) of the Constitution, X Corp said in its appeal.

In contrast, Section 79 is purely an "exemption provision" meant to grant intermediaries safe harbor from liability and it does not confer any independent power on the government to issue blocking orders.

As per X Corp's plea, the government is resorting to widespread misuse of Section 79(3)(b) in conjunction with Rule 3(1)(d), which mandates intermediaries to remove any information which is prohibited under any law for the time being in force.

Key points raised by X Cop include:

Delegation of Power: An October 31, 2023, MeitY (Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology) memorandum directed tens of thousands of executive officers and police personnel across all central ministries and state governments to issue blocking orders directly under Section 79(3)(b) and Rule 3(1)(d), circumventing the Section 69A process.

"Sahyog" Portal: The Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA), on MeitY's instruction, created a secretive, non-public online portal called the "Sahyog" (Censorship Portal) to facilitate the issuance of these unlawful blocking orders without legislative backing or transparency. According to the petition, this portal is an impermissible exercise of executive power and a colourable attempt to usurp judicial functions.

Arbitrary Censorship: There have been numerous instances where State police (e.g., Satara, West Bengal, Bihar, Chennai) and Central ministries (e.g., Ministry of Railways) issued blocking orders under Rule 3(1)(d) to censor lawful criticism of public officials, news reports, political speech, and parody content on grounds that align with, but avoid the safeguards under Section 69A.

Lack of Safeguards: The single-judge order failed to address that Rule 3(1)(d) lacks the extensive procedural and substantive safeguards present in Section 69A, thus violating Article 14 (right to equality) and rendering Section 69A meaningless, as the same information can be blocked under an arbitrary and less advantageous procedure

One of the major ground raised by X Corp is that the single-judge failed to apply and follow the binding precedent of the Supreme Court in Shreya Singhal.

The single-judge erroneously held that Shreya Singhal was restricted or no longer applicable because the 2011 IT Rules were superseded by the 2021 IT Rules.

As per the petition, the bedrock of the Shreya Singhal decision—Section 69A, Section 79 and the 2009 Blocking Rules - remain unchanged.