The Delhi High Court on Monday directed the immediate restoration of the parody X account “Dr. Nimo Yadav”, operated by petitioner Prateek Sharma, while allowing temporary withholding of specific flagged tweets pending review.
Justice Purushaindra Kumar Kaurav passed the order while hearing a plea challenging the blocking of the account under Section 69A of the Information Technology Act. The direction followed a brief exchange between Senior Advocate Vrinda Grover and Additional Solicitor General (ASG) Chetan Sharma as the high court examined the legality of the blocking orders.
“Account to be restored immediately. Tweets identified in the blocking order will remain withheld temporarily. Principles of natural justice shall be followed before the Review Committee.”, as quuoted by LiveLaw.
The high court further directed the petitioner to appear before the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology’s (MeitY) Review Committee, where the government must justify whether the flagged tweets meet the legal threshold under Section 69A.
During the hearing, Grover argued that the petitioner had approached the constitutional court on March 25 after receiving a platform notification about the account being withheld, but had received no formal communication from the government.
“What is the legal scheme? Blocking order passed by Respondent No.1 is to withhold my entire account, not just information. After blocking me on March 19, you cannot now ask me to 'come to the Review Committee',” as quuoted by LiveLaw.
She contended that the blocking order fell outside the scope of Section 69A. In response, ASG Chetan Sharma cited Rule 14 of the Blocking Rules, maintaining that the petitioner could appear before the Review Committee without delay.
The high court was also hearing a related plea by Kumar Nayan, who operates the account “Nehr Who”, among 12 accounts blocked under MeitY directives.
Earlier, X Corp informed the high court that the accounts were blocked on MeitY’s orders over allegedly defamatory and controversial posts targeting Prime Minister Narendra Modi. An affidavit stated that the accounts contained “defamatory posts” using photographs, videos, and AI-manipulated content to question the government and defame the Prime Minister.
X Corp has contested the blocking order, calling it disproportionate. In a March 19 objection letter to the Union Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology, the platform argued that most content did not meet the criteria under Section 69A and that no hearing opportunity was provided to account holders.
Advocates Vrinda Grover, Nakul Gandhi, Apaar Gupta and Soutik Banerjee appeared for the petitioner. Advocate Ankit Parihar represented X, while Advocate Avshreya Rudy appeared for MeitY.