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Social media platform X corp (formerly Twitter Inc.) on Monday (September 29, 2025) released a statement saying that it is deeply concerned by the recent order from the High Court of Karnataka, “which will allow millions of police officers to issue arbitrary takedown orders through a secretive online portal called the Sahyog”.
“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 High Court of Karnataka on September 24, 2025, rejected the petition filed by social media platform X Corp., which had challenged orders issued by Central and State authorities, under Section 79 of the Information Technology (IT) Act, to take down certain information on X.
“The Sahyog enables officers to order content removal based solely on allegations of ‘illegality,’ without judicial review or due process for the speakers, and threatens platforms with criminal liability for non-compliance,” the social media platform noted.
X said in the statement that it respects and complies with Indian law, “but this order fails to address the core constitutional issues in our challenge and is inconsistent with the Bombay High Court’s recent ruling that a similar regime was unconstitutional.”
“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,” it added.
Justice M. Nagaprasanna, while reading out the operative portions of the judgement, said: “Content on social media must be regulated, particularly in cases of offences against women, failing which the right to dignity of citizens is undermined.”
On a challenge made to the “Sahyog portal”, which allows Central and State agencies, and the local police officers to issue take-down orders by invoking Section 79(3)(b) of the IT Act, the Court said that this portal “is an instrument of public good and stands as a beacon of cooperation between the citizen and the intermediary, a mechanism through which the state endeavours to combat the growing menace of cybercrime.”
The High Court also rejected X Corp’s claim that orders issued under Section 79(3)(b) of IT Act are contrary to the Supreme Court’s judgment in the Shreya Singhal case, in which the top court had upheld validity Section 69A (power to issue orders to block information) of the IT Act with multiple procedural safeguards.
Published – September 29, 2025 10:27 am IST
