Karnataka HC dismisses Twitter plea against Centre’s blocking orders, imposes Rs 50 lakh cost

The court also indicated that Twitter as a foreign company cannot claim the rights of freedom of expression and personal liberty guaranteed to citizens of India under Articles 19 and 21 of the Constitution of India. The full details of the order are awaited.

Twitter had approached the Karnataka High Court, contesting the blocking orders issued with regard to several accounts.

The government had questioned Twitter’s locus standi in the matter as a foreign company, arguing that they could not take benefit of Article 19 and Article 21. The government also argued that there was no “jural relationship” between Twitter and its users as Twitter was supposed to act as a mere intermediary.

The gravity of tweets affecting the integrity of the country was also a line of argument with government counsel Additional Solicitor General R Sankaranarayanan arguing that tweets included referencing ‘Indian Occupied Kashmir’ and the survival of LTTE leader Velupillai Prabhakaran.

For their part, Twitter asserted that they had argued for these rights on the part of their users. Twitter also argued that even as a foreign entity, they had certain rights under Article 14 of the Constitution i.e. right to equality.

They also argued that the reason for the account blocking in each case was not supplied and that the provision for blocking a URL under Section 69a should not amount to the whole account being blocked but only the offending URL, since blocking the whole account would result in the barring of the creation of information, whereas blocking the offending tweet referred to information already created.