Providing email services is not a public function, the Delhi High Court has held, dismissing as not maintainable a writ petition against Google LLC seeking restoration of a disabled Gmail account.
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New Delhi: The Delhi High Court has dismissed a writ petition filed under Article 226 of the Constitution by a media company and its director against Google LLC and Google India Private Limited, who sought a direction to verify their recovery credentials and restore full access to a Gmail account that Google had disabled citing “unusual activity”, holding that the provision of email services is a commercial activity and not a public function [Janta Live Press Network Pvt Ltd and Another v. Google LLC and Others].
Justice Amit Mahajan held that the petitioners had not demonstrated any “public function” in the strict legal sense required to invoke Article 226, and left them at liberty to take recourse to other legal remedies in accordance with law.
The case
Petitioner No. 1 is a private limited company that runs a media business under the name ‘Janta Live News’, including a YouTube news channel, and Petitioner No. 2 is its Director. According to the petitioners, the Gmail account was accessed without authorisation by third parties on July 20, 2026, after which Google disabled it citing “unusual activity”. They said the Director emailed Google’s support team from his personal account narrating the sequence of events and seeking restoration, but received no response, and that a formal complaint was also lodged with the Cyber Police Station without the account being restored.
The petitioners argued that, although Google is not a public entity, a writ would lie because it discharges a public function. They relied on the Delhi High Court Division Bench decision in XYZ v. Union of India (2026:DHC:8440) and contended that Google is bound by the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021.
What the Court said
The Court noted that the grievance was “undisputedly serious”, but said the question was not whether it warranted redress, but whether the relief sought could appropriately be granted in a writ petition. It recalled that a writ under Article 226 lies against private bodies only if they perform functions that can be construed as public functions, which it described as functions similar or closely related to those performable by the State in its sovereign capacity, citing G. Bassi Reddy v. International Crops Research Institute (2003) 4 SCC 225.
Applying that test, Justice Mahajan held:
The provision of providing e-mail services is a commercial activity undertaken by private entities. Neither the provision of an email account nor its suspension or disabling on security grounds, without more, constitutes the performance of a public function or discharge of a public duty.
The Court added that e-mail services are offered by various independent providers and are not monopolised by Google, and that the importance of an account to its user, or its widespread use, does not make it a public function:
The decisive consideration thus is the nature of the function and not merely the size or reach of the entity concerned.
The precedent and the IT Rules
The Court found that the Division Bench ruling in XYZ v. Union of India did not aid the petitioners. That case concerned informational privacy and the name-based searchability of judicial records, with the petitioners there seeking de-indexing of those records and masking of personal identifiers. Here, the Court observed, the petitioners “merely seek restoration of an e-mail account”.
On the 2021 Rules and the Information Technology Act, 2000, the Court held that grievance-redressal and intermediary compliance obligations do not change the conclusion:
The existence of certain obligations concerning grievance redressal and intermediary compliance does not automatically convert disputes arising from account restriction, security incident or alleged failure of customer support into a public function amenable to writ jurisdiction.
The outcome
Concluding that, despite its widespread use, no “public function” in the strict legal sense intended to invoke Article 226 had been demonstrated, the Court held the writ petition not maintainable and dismissed it. The petitioners remain at liberty to take recourse to appropriate legal remedies in accordance with law. The Court has not ruled on the petitioners’ allegation of unauthorised access or on the merits of Google’s decision to disable the account.
Why the order matters
The order applies the settled public function test to a routine but increasingly common dispute: a user locked out of a widely used digital account. By holding that the nature of the function, and not the size or reach of the platform, is decisive, it signals that account suspension disputes with private technology companies will ordinarily have to be pursued through other remedies rather than writ petitions.
It also clarifies that statutory grievance-redressal duties of intermediaries under the 2021 Rules do not, by themselves, turn a private platform into an entity amenable to Article 226.
Case Title: Janta Live Press Network Pvt Ltd and Another v. Google LLC and Others [W.P.(C) 14915/2026]
Bench: Justice Amit Mahajan, Delhi High Court
Date of Order: October 8, 2026
Appearances: Advocates Adil Sharf Uddin, Deepanshu Jha and Divyanshu Bisht for the petitioners; Advocate Aishwarya Kane for Google LLC; CGSC Nitinjya Chaudhary with Advocate Rahul Mourya and Government Pleader Shubham Goyal for Respondent No. 2