According to the court’s order dated April 23, X Corp has been given two weeks to submit its amendment applications. The company must also send a copy of these applications to the government in advance.
Karnataka: The Karnataka High Court has postponed the hearing of a petition filed by X Corp (previously known as Twitter) against the Union Government’s content takedown orders. The hearing is now scheduled for July 1, 2025.
Senior Advocate KG Raghavan, appearing for X Corp—the social media platform owned by Elon Musk—requested the adjournment. He informed the court that X Corp needed more time to make changes to its original petition.
“The petitioner wants to file applications seeking amendments,” Raghavan told the court.
Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, who represented the Central Government, did not object to this request. He suggested fixing a date after the court’s summer break.
According to the court’s order dated April 23, X Corp has been given two weeks to submit its amendment applications. The company must also send a copy of these applications to the government in advance.
After receiving X Corp’s amended petition, the government will get three weeks to file its reply. Once that is done, X Corp will be allowed another three weeks to submit a rejoinder (a counter-response to the government’s reply).
X Corp had originally approached the High Court on March 5, 2025, to challenge the way the Union Government was using certain legal provisions to demand content removal.
The company argued that the Centre was misusing Section 79(3)(b) of the Information Technology Act. This section removes “safe harbour” protection from social media platforms if they do not follow takedown requests. But X Corp said this section is not meant for issuing takedown orders and accused the government of bypassing proper legal safeguards.
According to X Corp, Section 69A of the IT Act is the correct legal provision for such actions. This section clearly explains the procedure for content blocking, such as the need for “reasoned orders” and an opportunity for the affected party to be “heard” before any decision is made.
During an earlier hearing on April 3, X Corp’s lawyers strongly argued that Section 69A must be followed when blocking online content. They claimed that by invoking Section 79(3)(b), the government was “bypassing statutory safeguards”.
