The High Court of Karnataka has refused to stay the blocking order issued by the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeiTY) to Twitter Inc under Section 69A of the Information Technology Act.
Rejecting the petition filed by the microblogging site, the Single-Judge Bench of Justice Krishna S. Dixit further imposed a cost of Rs 50 lakh on the social platform for its conduct.
The Bench rebuked the counsel appearing for Twitter for not complying with the notices issued to it, noting that punishment for non-compliance was seven-year imprisonment and unlimited fine.
It said the petitioner did not submit any reason for delaying the compliance by more than a year. Then all of a sudden, the petitioner complied and approached the Court, noted the High Court, remarking that Twitter was not a farmer, but a billion dollar company.
The High Court said it had framed eight issues in the matter. Regarding locus standi, it said this has been answered in Twitter’s favour. Regarding the nexus between blocking order and the reasons behind such an order, the Single-Judge Bench ruled against Twitter.
Regarding the proportionality on whether blocking should be tweet specific or period specific, the High Court noted that it had ruled against the social media platform.
The Bench also refused to issue guidelines to the Centre, as sought by Advocate Manu Kulkarni for Twitter, in exercise of its powers under Section 69A.
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