Courts examine Centre's digital takedown powers in Sahyog, FCU cases

Karnataka High Court seeks Centre's response on X Corp challenge to the Sahyog portal, while the Supreme Court agrees to examine the Fact Check Unit provisions under IT Rules

The Karnataka High Court on Tuesday sought a response from the Union government on an appeal by social-media platform X Corp (formerly Twitter), which had questioned the legality of the Centre’s “Sahyog” portal, an online system used by authorities to issue orders to intermediaries on taking down content.

 

A Division Bench comprising Chief Justice Vibhu Bakru and Justice C M Poonacha scheduled the matter for further hearing on June 11.

 

The appeal challenges the September 2025 ruling by a single judge, who had upheld the validity of the portal. In that decision, Justice M Nagaprasanna had rejected X Corp’s plea against the mechanism and held that the company could not invoke the right to freedom of speech under Article 19 of the Constitution, available only to Indian citizens.

 

 

X Corp has argued before the Division Bench that the portal enables the authorities and police officials in the country to direct removing online content without following the statutory blocking procedure laid down in the Information Technology (IT) Act, 2000.

 

The company’s position is that the portal effectively allows the government to bypass the legal safeguards contained in Section 69A of the IT Act and the Information Technology (Procedure and Safeguards for Blocking for Access of Information by Public) Rules, 2009.

 

This framework, which was upheld by the Supreme Court in the Shreya Singhal case, permits blocking online content only on specific grounds under Article 19(2) of the Constitution and requires procedural checks.

 

According to X Corp, authorities have instead been issuing directions on removal by invoking Section 79(3)(b) of the IT Act read with Rule 3(1)(d) of the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021.

 

The company argues that Section 79 is merely a safe-harbour provision, which shields intermediaries from liabilities, and does not grant independent powers to the government to order content blocking.

 

In its appeal, X Corp cited data on government transparency, stating that between January and June last year, it received 29,118 requests from Indian authorities for removing posts and complied with 26,641 of them, reflecting a compliance rate of over 91 per cent.

 

Fact check units challenge 

 

The Supreme Court on Tuesday agreed to examine the Union government’s challenge to a September 2024 ruling of the Bombay High Court, which had invalidated provisions of the Information Technology Rules that enabled the Centre to establish “Fact Check Units” (FCUs). However, the court declined the government’s request to suspend the operation of the high court’s judgment.

 

A Bench comprising Chief Justice of India Surya Kant, Justice Joymalya Bagchi, and Justice R Mahadevan issued notice on the Centre’s petitions, observing that the matter raised questions of significant importance and that the court would settle the legal position on the issue.

 

The disputed provisions were introduced through a 2023 amendment to the Information Technology Rules. Under the amendment, social-media intermediaries risk losing their “safe harbour” protection if they fail to remove content identified as false or misleading by a government-designated Fact Check Unit.

 

The Bombay High Court had struck down these provisions while deciding petitions filed by satirist Kunal Kamra, the Editors Guild of India, the News Broadcasters and Digital Association, the Association of Indian Magazines and others.

 

During the hearing before the Supreme Court, Senior Advocate Arvind Datar, appearing for the respondents, argued that the Centre’s appeal suffered from substantial delay, noting that the high court’s decision had been delivered several months earlier. He also submitted that the recently notified Information Technology Rules of 2025 had rendered the FCU mechanism unnecessary.

 

The chief justice, however, declined to entertain objections based on delay and said the court would consider the matter on its merits.

 

The Bench also underscored concerns about misinformation circulating on digital platforms. The chief justice remarked that unchecked fake news could seriously harm institutional credibility and that clearer regulatory standards for social media platforms may be necessary. He noted that even institutions such as the armed forces and the police were increasingly targeted by misinformation.

 

After the court agreed to issue notice, Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, appearing for the Centre, sought an interim stay of the high court’s ruling. The Bench declined the request, stating that it would instead proceed to examine the case on merit.