Social media platform X Corp said on Monday that it was concerned by the Karnataka High Court’s order on its petition against the Sahyog Portal and takedown orders issued by the Government, adding that it would appeal against the order to defend free expression.
On September 24, the bench of Justice M Nagaprasanna dismissed X Corp’s petition against the Sahyog portal for intermediaries, which it had described as a “censorship portal” in one of the hearings. X Corp had also objected to takedown orders being issued under section 79(3)(b) of the Information Technology Act.
X Corp said in its statement posted on the Global Government Affairs handle online that the order would allow “millions of police officers” to issue takedown orders through the Sahyog portal. “This new regime has no basis in the law, circumvents Section 69A of the IT Act, violates Supreme Court rulings, and infringes Indian citizens’ constitutional rights to freedom of speech and expression,” the social media platform added.
The platform said that removals through the Sahyog portal did not have judicial review or due process and that non-compliant platforms were threatened with criminal liability. It also stated that the court’s order had not accounted for “core constitutional issues” as well as a ruling of the Bombay High Court.
X Corp also disagreed with the high court’s stance that the right to freedom of expression was reserved for citizens alone, stating, “We respectfully disagree with the view that we have no right to raise these concerns because of our incorporation abroad—X contributes significantly to public discourse in India and the voice of our users is at the heart of our platform. We will appeal this order to defend free expression.”
The high court order emphasised the importance of speech being regulated, “From Orient to Occident, the march of civilisation has borne witness to the inescapable truth that information or communication has never been left unchecked and unregulated…..from messengers to the postal age till the age of WhatsApp, Instagram and Snapchat, all have been regulated by regulatory regimes…,” the order read.