The Delhi High Court ordered restoration of the Dr Nimo Yadav X account but allowed the government to continue blocking certain tweets against PM Narendra Modi. The Court said the flagged tweets will remain temporarily blocked and will be reviewed by a Review Committee.
The Delhi High Court on Monday ordered the restoration of a satirical X (formerly Twitter) account named Dr. Nimo Yadav, which had been blocked earlier by the Central government. The Court, however, clarified that some tweets which were flagged as objectionable by the government will continue to remain blocked for now.
The Court also directed that the account operator must appear before a Review Committee, which will decide whether those tweets should continue to remain blocked or not.
While passing the order, the Court stated,
“The alleged objectionable tweets stated in the blocking order be put under temporary blocking category. The petitioner’s account be restored. The Government of India is at liberty to monitor material and if further objectionable material is posted, it is at liberty to take recourse as per law,”
the Court said.
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The order was passed in a petition filed by Prateek Sharma, who operates the Dr Nimo Yadav X account. His account was blocked in India on March 19 following a blocking order issued by the Central government on March 18. Sharma challenged this blocking before the Delhi High Court and also asked the Court to direct the government to produce the blocking order.
During the hearing, the Central government told the Court that the account was blocked because it was
“spreading false narratives involving the Prime Minister” and “portraying him in bad taste.”
The government stated that the account contained defamatory posts where photographs, videos and AI-generated content were allegedly used to create controversial posts targeting the government and defaming Prime Minister Narendra Modi. According to the government, spreading such false information could affect public order and may also create internal security threats.
Documents submitted before the Court showed that apart from this account, 11 other Twitter handles were also blocked under the Central government’s blocking order dated March 18.
Prateek Sharma argued before the Court that blocking his account caused him financial loss and affected his professional work because the account was a source of livelihood for him. His lawyer told the Court that if the government identifies the specific tweets that are objectionable, they are willing to take necessary steps, including deleting those tweets if required.
Advocate Vrinda Grover, appearing for Sharma, questioned the government’s action and told the Court that her client was not given a copy of the blocking order before the account was blocked. She told the Court that the blocking order was only shared with Sharma after he filed the case in the High Court.
During the hearing, she argued,
“The legal scheme cannot be that you violate my rights to avoid judicial scrutiny. The blocking order is totally illegal, arbitrary order from 19th March today, being 6th of April. I want my account to be reopened. They have delineated 10 tweets. This is not within domain of Section 69A. If these are the offending tweets, I would delete these particular tweets and restore my account,”
she argued.
On the other hand, Additional Solicitor General Chetan Sharma, appearing for the Central government, told the Court that the Court should be careful before interfering with the government’s blocking decision. He argued that the tweets made serious allegations and remarks against the Prime Minister and could have wider consequences.
He said,
“It needs to be thrashed out. You (X account holder) make certain disparaging remarks against the Head of the country, foreign relations so on. The damage has been done. Everybody will now write piggyback on this,”
he argued.
The lawyer appearing for X (Twitter) also told the Court that blocking or deleting the entire account may not be the correct solution. He explained that if the entire account is deleted and later the Court decides that the tweets were protected under free speech, then those tweets cannot be restored. Therefore, he suggested that instead of deleting the entire account, specific tweets can be blocked temporarily.
He submitted before the Court,
“If the petitioner deletes these tweets and ultimately my Lord holds that these were free speech, then there’s no way to restore them (if the account is deleted as a whole). So deletion, in my submission, would not be the appropriate remedy, because then it’s gone. I can hand over screenshots of these tweets, and my Lord can see if it actually needs to be deleted. We can, in the interim, block them (individual tweets/ X posts),”
X’s counsel said.
After hearing all parties, the Delhi High Court ordered that the X account Dr. Nimo Yadav should be restored, but the tweets identified as objectionable will remain temporarily blocked.
The Court also allowed the Central government to continue monitoring the account and take action as per law if any further objectionable content is posted. The Court further directed that the matter regarding the flagged tweets will now be examined by the Review Committee.
Advocates Vrinda Grover, Nakul Gandhi, Apar Gupta, Siddhi Sahoo, Gurdeep Singh and Soutik Banerjee appeared for Sharma, while Advocate Ankit Parhar appeared for Twitter. The Central government was represented by Additional Solicitor General Chetan Sharma and advocate Avshreya Rudy.
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