K'taka HC defers hearing- X's appeal against penalty

NT Correspondent

Bengaluru: The Karnataka High Court on Wednesday, deferred to October 4, the hearing of an appeal filed by social media giant X (formerly Twitter) against a Rs 50-lakh penalty for not complying with the Centre’s takedown orders.

A division bench of the court put off the hearing on the Centre’s request after it sought three weeks to decide if the issue should be sent back to authorities for a rethink.

The court said the government had sought a long adjournment and it should rather admit the appeal and post it for final hearing. The government then sought a shorter date.

On August 10, a division bench of the high court asked X to deposit Rs 25 lakh, or 50 percent, with the registry in a week's time to show it is bonafide while dismissing its plea challenging the blocking orders issued to it by the Union government.

The court said asking the company to deposit the amount should not be treated as an acceptance by the court that X has a case. Subject to the deposit of penalty, the order of the single-judge bench, which directed the micro-blogging site to pay Rs 50 lakh, would remain on stay.

The judge also said that if the penalty was not paid in 45 days, X would have to pay Rs 5,000 every day.

The X had filed an appeal against the single judge's order of June 30, dismissing its plea challenging the blocking orders issued by the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) under Section 69A of the Information Technology Act, 2000.

The issue goes back to June 2022, when MeitY served X, then Twitter, notices alleging the platform was non-compliant with the IT rules.

When X filed the petition in the court, it was revealed that the platform had not complied with some of the orders, as MeitY had not provided sufficient reasons under Section 69A to block such content.

X said that in some cases, MeitY only cited the grounds without specifying how it violated the act.