In an interim measure following an appeal by X Corp – previously Twitter Inc – the Karnataka High Court has allowed the deposit of only half the cost of Rs 50 lakh that was imposed by a single judge of the court on the firm on June 30 in a plea against the Government of India's blocking orders on some Twitter accounts. In June this year, a single-judge bench of the Karnataka High Court dismissed a plea filed by Twitter Inc against orders issued by the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology over the blocking of selective accounts, and imposed a cost of Rs 50 lakh since the social media company approached the court without complying with the orders for over a year. Twitter Inc, which has now become X Corp under the new ownership of US billionaire Elon Musk, appealed to a division bench of the Karnataka High Court against the June 30 order. It said the writ petition before the single judge was with respect to only 39 blocking orders issued by the government, and that the majority of the other orders were complied with. The counsel for X Corp told the high court this week that the single judge had also awarded "exorbitant cost" and that the firm is willing to pay a reasonable amount. On the basis of the plea by X Corp, the high court has asked the company to deposit Rs 25 lakh within a week from Thursday. "We further make it clear that permission to the appellant to deposit part of the amount of the cost to the tune of Rs 25,00,000/- may not be treated as acceptance by this Court that some equity lies in favour of the appellant. This is only on the statement made by the appellant that to show its bonafide, the appellant is permitted to deposit part of the cost," the high court division bench comprising Chief Justice P Varale and Justice M G S Kamal said Thursday. "As such, interim order of stay is granted only in respect of balance payment of cost to the tune of Rs 25,00,000/- and of the order directing payment of Rs 5,000/- (Rupees Five Thousand only), per day of delay in depositing the same is concerned," the high court said. Earlier, in its June 30 order, the single-judge bench of Justice Krishna Dixit had ruled that Twitter Inc must pay the fine of Rs 50 lakh within 45 days or face a penalty of Rs 5,000 per day of delay. The high court imposed the costs stating that the case had impacted other litigants, and that there had been non-compliance with blocking orders for over a year by Twitter. It said "the impugned (blocking) orders have been implemented with a clandestine caveat of reserving the right to challenge. This is a classic case of speculative litigation and therefore, the petitioner is liable to suffer levy of exemplary costs." "It can be safely said that the learned Single Judge found that in spite of several opportunities being granted to the petitioner, the petitioner was unable to show the dutiful compliance of the orders passed by the respondent-competent authority," the division bench noted. X Corp told the court that there was compliance with the order of the central government and the firm had not complied with the order only in respect of a few URLs i.e., in total 39 URLs and that the petition was focused on these 39 URLs. The Government of India argued that X Corp has not produced any documents to show compliance with the blocking orders of the Ministry of Electronics and IT and that the firm itself stated that there was compliance with the majority of the orders. The court has adjourned the matter for two weeks.
