Delhi High Court orders Dr Nimo Yadav X account to be restored; tweets against PM Modi to remain blocked

The Delhi High Court on Monday ordered the restoration of a recently blocked satirical X (formerly Twitter) account that goes by the name Dr. Nimo Yadav.

Justice Purushaindra Kumar Kaurav, however, added that certain tweets flagged as objectionable by the Central government will remain blocked for now.

The operator of the X account has been directed to appear before a Review Committee to examine whether these tweets will have to continue being blocked.

"The alleged objectionable tweets stated in the blocking order be put under temporary blocking category. The petitioner’s account be restored. The Government of India is at liberty to monitor material and if further objectionable material is posted, it is at liberty to take recourse as per law," the Court said.

The Court passed the ruling on a plea by Prateek Sharma, the operator of the Dr Nimo Yadav X account, which was blocked in India on March 19 pursuant to the orders of the Central government.

Sharma challenged the blocking of his account and sought a production of the government's blocking order.

The government later told the Court that the handle was blocked after the government found that it was “spreading false narratives involving the Prime Minister” and “portraying him in bad taste."

An order dated March 18 was issued by the Central government to X to block the account. The said confidential order was submitted by X along with related documents.

The blocking order said that the Dr Nimo Yadav account contains defamatory posts in which photographs, videos and AI-manipulated content were used to create controversial posts questioning the government and defaming Prime Minister Narendra Modi. It added that that spreading such false information may affect public order, leading to internal security threats. 

The documents submitted before the Court further revealed that 11 other Twitter handles were also blocked in view of the Central govenment's March 18 blocking order.

Sharma said that the continued blocking of his account resulted in loss of income and disruption of professional engagements, as the account serves as a source of livelihood for him. The counsel for Sharma added that if they are informed about the offending material, they would take necessary steps if required. 

Representing Sharma, advocate Vrinda Grover, today questioned why her client was not given the Central government's March 18 blocking order before the account was blocked on March 19.

She recounted that the blocking order was shared with Sharma only after he filed the petition before the High Court.

"The legal scheme cannot be that you violate my rights to avoid judicial scrutiny. The blocking order is totally illegal, arbitrary order from 19th March today, being 6th of April. I want my account to be reopened. They have delineated 10 tweets. This is not within domain of Section 69A. If these are the offending tweets, I would delete these particular tweets and restore my account," she argued.

The Central government, represented by Additional Solicitor General Chetan Sharma, urged the Court to be slow before overturning the government's decision.

"It needs to be thrashed out. You (X account holder) make certain disparaging remarks against the Head of the country, foreign relations so on. The damage has been done. Everybody will now write piggyback on this," he argued.

The Counsel representing X (Twitter) argued that a direction to delete an entire account may not be ideal.

"If the petitioner deletes these tweets and ultimately my Lord holds that these were free speech, then there's no way to restore them (if the account is deleted as a whole). So deletion, in my submission, would not be the appropriate remedy, because then it's gone. I can hand over screenshots of these tweets, and my Lord can see if it actually needs to be deleted. We can, in the interim, block them (individual tweets/ X posts)," X's counsel said.

Advocates Vrinda Grover, Nakul Gandhi, Apar Gupta, Siddhi Sahoo, Gurdeep Singh and Soutik Banerjee appeared for Sharma. 

Advocate Ankit Parhar appears for Twitter. 

The Central government was represented by Additional Solicitor General Chetan Sharma and advocate Avshreya Rudy.

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