Karnataka High Court reserves verdict in Twitter plea against Central government's orders to block tweets, accounts

The Karnataka High Court on Friday reserved orders in a petition by Twitter challenging ten blocking orders issued by the Central government directing it to take down 39 URLs between February 2021 and February 2022..Justice Krishna S Dixit reserved the verdict after hearing Twitter as well as the Central government at length. Below is a round-up of the arguments made before the High Court..Arguments by Twitter.- The Central government was not empowered to issue general orders calling for the blocking of social media accounts and the orders must contain reasons that are communicated to users.- A blocking order could only be issued in a situation where the nature of the content was in line with the grounds laid down under Section 69A of the Information Technology Act.- If reasons were not recorded in such blocking orders, there would be a possibility of their being manufactured at a later stage.- The practice of not issuing notice to the users also affected the rights of the intermediary.- Rights of the users under Article 19 were infringed by blocking their accounts without notice. - The entire account could not be blocked and only specific offending information ought to be the subject of blocking orders.- Invocation of Article 226 of the Constitution (writ jurisdiction of High Courts) is not limited to violation of constitutional rights and there was no bar on Twitter approaching the Court.- Even if the Court upholds the blocking orders, guidelines ought to be passed to regulate account blocking. .Arguments by Central government.- Twitter cannot speak on behalf of its account holders and, therefore, has no locus standi to file the petition. - Twitter did not have the right to espouse the cause of users since such an action requires statutory enablement.- The company could only approach the court claiming violation of rights under Article 14 if the government has acted arbitrarily.- Since Twitter is a foreign entity and the government's ten blocking orders were not arbitrary, the company could not fall back on fundamental rights under Articles 14 (right to equality) and 19 (right to freedom of speech and expression) of the Indian Constitution.- Only when there was a threat to the sovereignty of India or public order, would the Central government intervene..The ten blocking orders in question, which were issued between February 2021 and February 2022, directed Twitter to block certain information from access to the public, and to suspend several accounts. The blocking orders were handed over to the High Court via sealed covers..In its petition filed before the High Court, Twitter contended that account-level blocking is a disproportionate measure and violates the rights of users under the Constitution.Out of a total of 1,474 accounts and 175 tweets, Twitter challenged the blocking of only 39 URLs.The petition stated that the orders in question are manifestly arbitrary, and procedurally and substantively not in consonance with Section 69A of the IT Act.Further, they fail to comply with the procedures and safeguards prescribed by the Information Technology (Procedure and Safeguards for Blocking for Access of Information by Public) Rules, 2009 (Blocking Rules), it was submitted.Twitter also argued that the direction to block entire accounts falls afoul of Section 69A of the IT Act..The Central government, on the other hand, submitted in its reply that the directions to block certain Twitter accounts were issued in national and public interest and to prevent incidents of lynching and mob violence.The government emphasised that it is committed to providing an open, safe, trusted and accountable internet to its citizens, and that its powers to block information has a limited scope..Senior Advocates Ashok Haranahalli, Arvind Datar and Advocate Manu Kulkarni represented Twitter while Additional Solicitor General of India R Sankaranarayanan appeared for the Central government.