ON SEPTEMBER 24, 2025, a single-judge Bench of the Karnataka High Court of Justice M. Nagaprasanna rejected the writ petition by Elon Musk's platform X (formerly Twitter) challenging India's "Sahyog" content-blocking portal. In my earlier piece, I raised fundamental questions about the Information Technology Act's safe-harbour regime (Section 79) versus its formal takedown process (Section 69A), and about the scope of free speech in the digital age. In its 351-page judgment, the Court emphatically upheld the Sahyog portal as a lawful administrative tool - "an instrument of public good" - while reiterating that online expression is "hedged by restrictions."
This piece examines the Court's reasoning and its implications for Indian digital governance. First, it sketches the competing arguments - X Corp.'s plea and the Union's case - then analyses the Court's holding on the Section 79/69A debate, its treatment of Article 19 and Shreya Singhal (2015), and its broader remarks on internet regulation. Then, the piece critically engages with the judgment's "calm" judicial tone and its assertive defense of regulation, contrasting it with the petitioners' free-speech concerns and with global trends in platform law.
X Corp.'s challenge and the Sahyog portal
X Corp.'s petition argued that the government was circumventing the law by using Section 79(3)(b) (the conditional "safe harbour" provision) to push intermediaries to remove content, instead of following Section 69A's blocking rules. In Shreya Singhal the Court had read down Section 69A's absolute power to block content, making it constitutional only with strict procedures, including written orders stating reasons, notice to the affected party, and review by a judicial committee.
X Corp. contended that the Sahyog portal's mechanism - which gathers nodal officers from various ministries and police, and forwards takedown notices via Section 79(3)(b) - lacked those safeguards. In effect, it alleged the portal created "a parallel mechanism" for censorship without due process. The petition sought a declaration that Section 79(3)(b) does not itself empower takedowns, and that only Section 69A (with its rules) can authorise blocking. X Corp. also urged the Court to quash notifications empowering officials under the Sahyog framework, and to protect its staff from any coercion for refusing to join the portal.
For its part, the Union defended Sahyog as a purely technical platform to streamline legally valid takedown orders. In Court, Solicitor General Tushar Mehta argued that no one disputes Section 79(3)(b) itself; rather, the portal helps coordinate compliance by putting all authorised officers and intermediaries on one digital interface. The government noted that Section 79's safe harbour is, in any case, conditional: intermediaries must "expeditiously" remove unlawful content upon notice or lose immunity. In other words, according to the State, Sahyog merely automates a longstanding duty - to assist law enforcement in taking down content used for illicit ends - not create new censorship powers. The Union justified robust takedown powers by citing the rapid spread of misinformation and cybercrime, arguing that democracies worldwide (including the US and EU) impose limits on speech to protect public order.
The High Court sided with the Union. Justice Nagaprasanna held that Sahyog is not a secret censorship engine but a legitimate "administrative channel" for communication between agencies and platforms.
Key findings include:
(i) Sahyog's lawfulness: The portal, maintained by the Home Ministry's crime center, was conceived "under the authority of Section 79(3)(b) of the IT Act and Rule 3(1)(b) of the 2021 Rules", and "stands as a beacon of cooperation" to fight cybercrime. The Court found that Sahyog merely improves efficiency - ensuring notices reach the right officers with traceability - while the real power to block content still resides exclusively in Section 69A and the 2009 Blocking Rules.
(ii) Article 19 limited to citizens: The Court stressed that fundamental free-speech guarantees under Article 19(1)(a) shelter only citizens, so a US-based company like X Corp. has no Article 19 claim in India.
(iii) Free speech is not absolute: Echoing well-settled law, the judgment reiterated that "Article 19(1)(a) is hedged under restrictions" and that even in the US, the courts now recognise limits on online speech.
(iv) Foreign jurisprudence no panacea: The Court warned that "American thought cannot be transplanted into Indian soil," and treated the US Reno decision (on which Shreya Singhal partly rested) as outdated. Notably, Justice Nagaprasanna invoked the recent US Take It Down Act (2025) - a law criminalising certain revenge-porn imagery - to illustrate that even in the US, there is no zone of unchecked online content.
The Court dismissed X Corp.'s claims as "without merit." It upheld Sahyog as within statutory authority, and it confirmed that any blocking order must ultimately be grounded in existing law.
Section 79 vs. Section 69A: Interpreting the IT Act
The fulcrum of X Corp.'s argument was statutory: does Section 79(3)(b) itself empower blocking orders, or does it only condition safe harbour? In their petition, X Corp. contended that Section 79(3)(b) - the clause stripping immunity if an intermediary fails to act - was never meant to be an independent censorship tool. Only Section 69A (with its procedural Rules) confers authority to block public access to content, and any deviation would thwart Shreya Singhal's safeguards. As the petition put it, Sahyog creates a parallel mechanism to issue blocking orders without adhering to the procedural safeguards prescribed under Section 69A.
Justice Nagaprasanna disagreed. He characterised Sahyog as an administrative convenience towards combat[ting] cybercrime. Crucially, the Court noted that nothing in Sahyog changes the law: the portal does not itself block content, it simply transmits notices issued by designated officers. In the Court's view, Section 79(3)(b) can coexist with Section 69A. It provides a framework to sanction intermediaries that defy lawful takedown directives, but the power to issue those directives lies elsewhere (primarily in 69A). The judgment notes that the binding power to issue blocking directions remains exclusively with Section 69A. Thus, the Court saw Sahyog as a kind of "digital post office" - a fast mail system for legitimate orders, not a secret arsenal of censorship.
This reasoning is encapsulated in the Court's emphatic praise of Sahyog:
"In truth, it's an instrument of public good… a beacon of cooperation between citizen and intermediary, a mechanism through which the State endeavors to combat the growing menace of cyber crime. To assail its validity is to misunderstand its purpose; hence, the challenge is without merit."
In the Court’s tone, Sahyog is framed positively as a needed tool, and any attack on it is said to reflect a misconception. It implies that so long as the source of each takedown order is some existing legal authority, the mere use of Sahyog cannot be unconstitutional.
In practical terms, the Court upheld the government's position. X Corp. cannot insist that every takedown be sent in a physically signed 69A order; digital coordination under Section 79(3)(b) is legitimate. What matters is that the content being takedown (for example, allegedly unlawful tweets) is of a type the law already prohibits - for instance, under the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita or other statutes. The Court found that the nodal officers on Sahyog invoke real laws when issuing notices, so intermediaries have to comply. As a result, the portal's operation did not independently create new bans.
X Corp. had warned of a shadow legal regime, but the Court essentially said: this is no shadow, it's a streamlined lawful process. That understanding aligns with the Union's arguments and with the Court's emphasis on order and accountability (albeit within a wide scope). By validating Sahyog, the Court has endorsed a regime where content removal is much faster and less public than under the classic 69A procedure. The judgment implies that procedural safeguards remain in the law even if they are not always visible in practice. The binding review committee and notice rules of 69A still exist, but if government agencies simply use Sahyog to transmit orders, those safeguards are, in effect, bypassed.
X Corp. also challenged Rule 3(1)(d) of the IT Rules, 2021 - which requires intermediaries to remove any unlawful content of certain types upon notice - as unconstitutional. The Court rejected that too, viewing it as a due diligence requirement, not a standalone censorship warrant. Thus, the entire petition's statutory attack failed.
The Court held that Section 79(3)(b) and Rule 3(1)(d) can validly compel removals once due process under other laws has been observed, but nothing in Sahyog allows any official to issue takedowns absolutely free of those laws.
Free speech and citizen rights
A recurring theme in the judgment was the limitation of free speech under the law. Justice Nagaprasanna made clear that Article 19(1)(a) rights belong only to Indian citizens. He observed that "Article 19 of the Constitution of India, noble in its spirit and luminous in its promise, remains nevertheless a charter of rights conferred upon citizens only." By contrast, X Corp. - an American company "faceless in the nation" - had standing only as an intermediary under Section 79, not as a rights-holder under Article 19. The implication is stark: foreign-owned platforms may host speech on an Indian forum, but they cannot claim Indian constitutional speech guarantees.
Beyond citizenship, the Court reaffirmed the settled doctrine that free speech is not a free-for-all. Justice Nagaprasanna invoked a sweeping metaphor about social media regulation:
"Social media, as the modern amphitheater of ideas, cannot be left in a state of anarchic freedom.. … Unregulated speech, under the guise of liberty, becomes a licence for lawlessness. Regulated speech, by contrast, preserves both liberty and order, the twin pillars upon which any democracy must stand."
These lines capture the Court's framing. It stressed that every democracy regulates speech online – no social network exists in a no-law zone. Citing examples, the Court pointedly noted that "the United States of America regulates it. Every sovereign nation regulates it"; Indian resolve "cannot by any stretch of constitutional imagination, be branded as unlawful." In other words, the Court rejects the idea that a platform can claim an American-style absolutist First Amendment shield in India. As it put it elsewhere, "American thought cannot be transplanted into Indian soil."
By this reasoning, the link between liberty and responsibility is reiterated. Platforms may host expressive forums, but with great reach comes the need for discipline. The judgment explicitly warned that, in the absence of regulation, online speech could threaten the dignity of citizens., The Court thus mapped X Corp's petition onto a classical debate: is Shreya Singhal's expansive view of free speech still the law, or have we entered a new era of digital moderation? Justice Nagaprasanna signaled the latter. He surveyed pre-Shreya and post-Shreya cases and concluded that free speech cannot be unbridled and must be regulated by reasonable restrictions.
Crucially, the Court did not treat Shreya Singhal as a straitjacket on new regulations. It was observed that Shreya was decided under the 2011 rules (and prior to the enactment of the 2021 Rules). In Justice Nagaprasanna's view, those rules have since been repealed and replaced, so Shreya's reasoning - which itself drew on outdated US precedent (Reno) is now of limited applicability. As the Court put it: "The 2021 Rules, fresh in their conception and distinct in their design, demand their own interpretative frame, unsaddled by precedents that address a bygone regime."
This assertion that Shreya Singhal is largely confined to history is one of the more controversial aspects of the judgment. The judgment essentially treats the 2021 intermediary rules as a new law-making project that the Supreme Court has not yet reviewed, allowing them to override earlier principles. The Supreme Court upheld Section 69A (with procedures) just a decade ago, and that the core values of necessity, proportionality and transparency remain part of Article 19(2) jurisprudence. The High Court's position is that India's current rules mandate cooperative censorship, even if they brush aside a prior judicial emphasis on notice and appeal.
On balance, the Court's treatment of free speech was firm. It left little doubt that online expression can be curtailed under broad government policy objectives (security, public order, cybercrime) as long as some procedural framework exists - albeit a framework heavily tilted towards enforcement over challenge.
Sahyog's legality and accountability
Justice Nagaprasanna's view is that Sahyog merely updates an old process. In his telling, no new power was created: authorised officers were always able to notify intermediaries under Section 79(3)(b), and Sahyog simply organises this in one portal. The Court likened it to an "automated platform" or "digital post office" that reduces duplication of notices and ensures traceability. It even found that nodal officers' actions were legally grounded, citing that their orders explicitly rely on violations of statutory law (e.g. the crime code).
From a legal standpoint, therefore, Sahyog survives. Yet, from an accountability perspective, questions remain. The judgment brushes aside the petition's concerns about transparency: the portal operates mostly in secret. There is no public record of how many and which orders are issued through Sahyog, nor are affected users typically given advance notice before takedown. Justice Nagaprasanna acknowledged the need for written reasons in law, but did not demand that those reasons be publicly disclosed. In practice, X Corp. and others may only learn of a takedown when a Ministry official contacts them - often after the fact.
I noted in my earlier piece that orders are neither publicly disclosed nor subject to adversarial challenge; bypassing Section 69A is like casting a shadow over censorship architecture. The judgment does not grapple with this criticism. It reiterates that intermediaries must obey takedown notices once properly issued, and that platforms retain control via their algorithms. But, it does not require, for example, that a user be informed of the legal basis for a removal if it came through Sahyog.
This gap echoes broader debates on executive discretion online. Sahyog in effect deputises thousands of officials to initiate removals, a dramatic expansion of enforcement reach. The Court's answer - that every facilitator is ultimately acting under Section 69A or other laws - may be true on paper, but offers a limited remedy if, in practice, due process is offloaded. No minimal standards of reason-giving or judicial review are imposed by Sahyog itself. Thus, the Court's endorsement, while legally defensible under its reading, leaves open a lingering concern: that an entire parallel system of content policing could operate with scant external checks, in the name of cybersafety.
The High Court focused on the theoretical legality of Sahyog. This appears to be legal formalism: if the law requires compliance, then compliance must follow, whether or not the law's enforcement aligns with democratic norms.
Judicial afterlife of Shreya Singhal
A central litmus for digital speech regulation in India has been Shreya Singhal. There, the Supreme Court struck down Section 66A and read strict conditions into Section 69A. It distinguished benign discussion from genuine incitement, demanding necessity and proportionality. How does the 2025 ruling relate?
Justice Nagaprasanna largely sidestepped Shreya Singhal's specifics. He viewed Shreya as addressing now-defunct rules. Consequently, its rigorous safeguards were deemed inapplicable to the current framework. The Court held that the old 2011 rules, replaced by the 2021 rules, required a fresh interpretive approach. In effect, it treated the legitimacy of censorship as something the Supreme Court had already vetted long ago; now the legislature can modify the process.
This is contentious. On one hand, the Court's deference reflects respect for legislative updates: if Parliament and the government redesign rules, the courts will not automatically transplant earlier readings. On the other hand, it suggests Shreya Singhal's core principle - that takedowns must meet Article 19(2) tests - has been loosened. Indeed, the judgment candidly asserts that the outright prohibition in Section 66A, and the original 2009/2011 rules, are now confined to history. If followed, this could mean future challenges to takedown regimes face an uphill battle, since the benchmark (Shreya Singhal's framing) is said to be superseded. Still, the Court did keep one legacy of Shreya Singhal alive: that substantive free-speech rights exist even in the digital context, albeit with restrictions. It reiterated that, in principle, any blocking must meet Article 19(2) grounds.
Shreya Singhal was acknowledged but effectively narrowed. The result is a shifting baseline: the constitutionally valid process is now whatever the new rules prescribe, plus whatever curbs Article 19(2) in its broad, post-First Amendment form allows. One effect is that procedural guarantees (like judicial review of takedown orders) are no longer judicially enforced. Instead, the courts focus on textual power: if the law says an official can remove content, and the portal helps enforce that law, the job is done.
Comparative context: US, EU and beyond
The bench was keenly aware of global trends in internet governance, and it invoked them strategically. It noted, echoing the judgment in Take It Down, that no country leaves online speech wholly unregulated - not even the US. Indeed, by September 2025, the US had just enacted the TAKE IT DOWN Act, targeting non-consensual intimate images and deepfakes. The Court pointed out that in the US, both defamation and revenge-porn laws exist, and platforms generally remove content ordered by courts or law enforcement. Thus, Justice Nagaprasanna implied, India's insistence on regulation is not exceptional but part of a worldwide pattern.
Yet, he also cautioned against blithely copying foreign laws. The judgment rejected Reno's First Amendment ethos as a binding model and refused to let Shreya turn India into a free-for-all like some Western agora. It stressed India's own constitutional text (with its categorical restrictions) differs fundamentally from the American approach. In doing so, the Court aligned itself with a view that the Constitution's framework of permitted restrictions (Articles 19(2)-(6)) permits a more managed approach to speech.
Meanwhile, the European Union (‘EU"’, under its Digital Services Act, 2024 (‘DSA’), offers an interesting counterpoint. The DSA retains liability protections for platforms akin to Section 79: intermediaries are not liable for user content so long as they remove illegal posts when notified. However, the EU goes further in other ways: very large platforms must conduct risk assessments, publish transparency reports, and allow certain user challenges. In effect, EU law says platforms keep immunity only by acting responsibly and transparently. India's regime, by contrast, still hinges on government notice to trigger removals; there is no parallel onus on platforms for proactive reporting or transparency. India's law has tightened the notice-and-takedown hook, whereas the EU's DSA complements notice-and-takedown with wide obligations and external oversight.
Should platforms be mostly hands-off (as in classic Section 230/79) or should they be partners in enforcement (as Indian law says via 79(3)(b))? The Karnataka decision clearly favors the latter, within an Indian cultural and constitutional frame.
Platform governance and the future of safe harbour
This ruling will reverberate through India's internet ecosystem. For intermediaries, the message is clear: safe harbour is real but conditioned. If a government officer, through Sahyog or any lawful channel, tells you "take it down", then failing to do so risks liability. The Court underscores that liability is only avoided by expeditious compliance, effectively making compliance a term of doing business in India. As Justice Nagaprasanna put it in Court, global platforms cannot treat India as a "playground" where the laws do not apply.
From a free-speech standpoint, the judgment incentivises overreach. By upholding Sahyog, the Court tacitly accepts that takedown notices need not be published or justified publicly. In practice, this could increase automated removals and chilling of even borderline speech. The balance struck is one in which liberty (speech) is upheld only so far as it does not disrupt the state's notion of order and decency. The Court's language - "license to lawlessness" for unregulated speech - suggests little sympathy for contrary arguments.
However, the decision is not the final word. X Corp. has already announced it will appeal. That appeal may well reach the Supreme Court, where the even larger question looms: how far can a foreign-owned platform challenge Indian censorship laws? And will a higher bench revisit how Section 69A and safe harbour coexist? Until then, this judgment stands as a touchstone. It upholds the broad executive-regulatory architecture while paying lip service to Article 19's limits. For now, transparency and due process will remain the missing variables in India's digital law equation.
Note:
X Corp. v. Union of India (W.P. 7405/2025)