Karnataka High Court in India dismissed Twitter’s plea challenging the government’s orders to block tweets and accounts, and also imposed a fine of 50 lakh ($60,943.65), according to a lawyer representing Twitter, reported Reuters.
This ruling comes after allegations made by Twitter’s former CEO, Jack Dorsey, who accused India of threatening to shut down the platform unless it complied with orders to restrict accounts critical of the government’s handling of farmer protests in 2021. The Indian government dismissed these accusations as false.
The court stated that Twitter had received notices, but failed to comply with them, as mentioned by India’s Deputy Minister for Information Technology, Rajeev Chandrasekhar, in a tweet. Twitter has not yet provided any comment on the verdict, and attempts to reach the company immediately were unsuccessful.
Last year, Twitter had approached the court seeking to overturn government orders to remove certain content from its platform. These orders were issued in response to content related to an independent Sikh state, alleged misinformation about farmer protests, and critical tweets about the government’s handling of the COVID-19 pandemic.
“So you have not given any reason why you delayed compliance, more than a year of delay… then all of sudden you comply and approach the court,” the bench said during the verdict on 30 June, Rajeev Chandrasekhar (Union Minister of State for Entrepreneurship, Skill Development, Electronics & Technology) tweeted.
During the verdict, the court highlighted Twitter’s delayed compliance without providing any reason, stating, “You are not a farmer but a billion-dollar company,” stated Chandrasekhar in a tweet.
In a filing with the top court in the state of Karnataka last year, Twitter had argued that some removal orders did not meet the procedural requirements of India’s IT act. The country’s IT act allows the government to block public access to content for reasons of national security and other grounds.
Twitter has undergone significant changes since its acquisition by Elon Musk, with a decline in advertising spending and a substantial reduction in its workforce, amounting to nearly 80 percent, reported Reuters.
Minister for Railways, Communications, Electronics & Information Technology, Ashwini Vaishnaw, welcomed the decision of the Karnataka High Court, stating, “Honourable court upholds our stand. Law of the land must be followed.”