The Karnataka High Court has declined to grant interim relief to social media company X in its legal bid to resist India’s demand for mandatory participation in the Sahyog portal — a centralized government platform for issuing content removal directives.
X took the matter to court after the Indian government insisted that it register on the Sahyog system, launched by the Union Home Ministry in 2024. While the state claims the portal merely facilitates compliance with existing legal norms, X has called it out as a tool that allows censorship to bypass judicial oversight.
The court’s ruling came Thursday, as reported by Bar and Bench, with Justice M Nagaprasanna stating that X already has the option to return to court if it faces any direct government pressure, making interim protection unnecessary at this point.
The Sahyog portal has rapidly become the government’s new digital mechanism for coordinating takedown orders, and more than a dozen large internet firms — including Google, Meta, Telegram, Amazon, Apple, and more — have already been added to its roster.
But X has refused to comply without a fight. In its March 5 filing, the company argued that the portal circumvents the legal protections embedded in India’s existing content-blocking framework, namely Section 69A of the Information Technology Act. That provision requires the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) to review and approve takedown orders, introducing a layer of accountability.
By contrast, X contends, Sahyog enables officials to issue directives through Section 79(3)(b), a move that sidesteps these safeguards.
During arguments, senior advocate KG Raghavan, representing X, insisted that any government directive to remove online content must follow the process established under Section 69A. “The interim prayer is innocuous. It does not affect adversely any concern expressed by the Union of India. The concern of the Union of India is legitimate—no one can say I won’t comply with the laws of this country. If you want to do business in this country, you have to comply. We are all on the same side, that nothing can be done which adversely affects the country…All we are saying is—the law is completely codified in Section 69A of the IT Act,” he said.
