The High Court of Karnataka on Wednesday asked the Union government to respond to a new plea by X Corp (formerly Twitter) for re-examining the blocking orders passed earlier and pass fresh ‘reasoned orders’ for blocking posts and accounts.
A Division Bench comprising Justice G. Narendar and Justice Vijayakumar A. Patil told the advocate representing the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology to get a response from the Ministry on the proposal made on behalf of X Corp for re-examination of blocking orders.
The Bench was hearing an appeal filed by X Corp questioning the single judge’s June 30 verdict of upholding blocking orders passed against X for removing objectionable posts and blocking accounts under the provisions of the Information Technology Act, 2000.
The Bench sought the response of the Ministry after the advocate representing X Corp submitted that that the court can remand the issue back to the Central government for reconsideration as “prima facie the blocking orders have no reasons” and X would continue to block the accounts and contents till the government passes fresh orders.
Rejecting the contention of X that “no reasons” were given for blocking orders, the single judge had observed that “no reasonable person in the trade would agree with the contention of the petitioner that, reasons for impugned are lacking. The X, in its appeal has questioned this finding of the single judge apart from challenging other findings recorded against it, including order of imposing exemplary cost of ₹50 lakh on it.
