The Union government on Wednesday told the High Court of Karnataka that there is no changed circumstance for re-examining the blocking orders passed to block objectionable posts and accounts of micro blogging platform, X (formerly Twitter) under the Information Technology Act, 2000.
A submission in this regard was made on behalf of the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology before a Division Bench comprising Justice G. Narendar and Justice Vijaykumar A. Patil during the hearing of an appeal filed by X Corp, which owns X. The appeal was filed challenging the single judge’s June 30 verdict of upholding the blocking orders passed by the competent authority of the Ministry.
The Bench during earlier hearing on the appeal had orally asked the Ministry whether the competent authority would re-examine the blocking orders after X’s advocate had made a proposal that the competent authority can re-examining the blocking orders as “no reasons” for blocking was given or communicated to X.
While adjourning hearing, the Bench indicated that it would go examine the issue raised by X of whether reasons of blocking orders passed by the competent authority are required to be communicated to the micro blogging platform and the account holders.
The single judge had rejected the contention of X that “no reasons” were given by the competent authority for blocking orders while observing that “no reasonable person in the trade would agree with the contention of X that, reasons for being impugned are lacking.
