KOLKATA – An ongoing lawsuit filed by billionaire Elon Musk’s social media platform X Corp against the Indian government is being tracked closely by many in the country because of its potential impact on India’s digital content regulatory framework.
X is [accusing the government of unlawfully censoring online content.](/asia/south-asia/elon-musk-sues-indias-government-over-takedown-orders-on-x) In its lawsuit, filed before the High Court of Karnataka on March 5, X says the Indian government has expanded its censorship powers illegally, empowering “countless” government officials to demand the removal of online content more easily.
The case was made public by Indian media reports on March 20; the next hearing is slated for April 3.
X’s legal challenge is also being watched with interest because of its timing. It comes amid Mr Musk’s growing influence within US President Donald Trump’s administration and India’s efforts to shield itself from any adverse fallout from Mr Trump’s foreign policies, including trade tariffs.
Two other Musk-owned companies – satellite Internet provider Starlink and carmaker Tesla – are inching closer to launching their businesses in India, prompting the question of why X is taking on the government at this time.
The American social media firm has challenged the government’s use of Section 79(3)(b) of the Information Technology (IT) Act, 2000 to issue takedown orders. The firm says this clause does not confer on the government the right to issue such orders.
This practice of using Section 79(3)(b) by the government, it adds, circumvents the existing legal process for content regulation and creates a parallel content-blocking mechanism that operates without procedural safeguards – as laid out in Section 69A of the IT Act and IT (Blocking Rules) 2009 – which the Supreme Court has upheld.
The lawsuit also flagged a “censorship portal” called Sahyog, launched by the Ministry of Home Affairs in 2024, which is used to issue content-removal orders and on which social media companies, including X, have been asked to register.
Section 69A, gives the government the right to remove online content, such as those that may harm India’s integrity or its security, but with certain checks that are detailed in IT (Blocking Rules) 2009. Any blocking order, for instance, has to be issued by a high-ranking government officer and reasons for it must be recorded in writing, something that is also subject to judicial scrutiny.
Section 79(3)(b), which was introduced in 2008 when the IT Act was amended, however, has no such checks. It simply states that an “appropriate” government agency can ask platforms like X to take down content. If they fail to do so, it adds that platforms will lose their “safe harbour” – a cover provided under Section 79(1) of the IT Act that protects platforms from legal liability for third-party content.
In a blog post dated March 21, the Internet Freedom Foundation (IFF), a Delhi-based non-profit group, said the government has transformed this safe harbour framework into a “censorship system on a large scale”.
It cites an October 2023 government memorandum through which the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology asked central government ministries, state governments and police chiefs to designate officers who can issue takedown notices under Section 79(3)(b). These orders can be sent via the Sahyog portal without explicit written justification, it adds, making it difficult to exercise judicial oversight and challenge.
Non-government organisations and experts say X’s legal challenge, if successful, could help prevent further erosion of freedom of expression online in India. The IFF has described X’s petition as “a required intervention to place checks and balances on web censorship in India”.
The group said the use of Section 79(3)(b) to block content had resulted in “illegal orders” from government departments and entities, “resulting in a framework of opaque censorship orders” that bypass court-mandated safeguards.
According to a report in Hindustan Times on March 21, India’s Ministry of Railways alone has sent at least seven content takedown notices to social media platforms since December 2024, targeting videos ranging from overcrowded trains to train vandalism incidents.
Between 2022 and 2024, the government blocked 28,079 URLs, a jump from 19,580 in the previous three years.
Mr Prateek Waghre, a Bangalore-based tech policy researcher, said the government’s use of takedown notices had increased in recent years, something that has been met with little resistance from social media platforms. “In that context, X’s pushback is interesting,” he told The Straits Times.
Mr Waghre noted that the government’s increased reliance on Section 79(3)(b) to issue takedown notices is part of its wider effort to gain better control of content in its various forms.
For instance, the government is considering setting up a Media Council to regulate print, broadcast, and digital media under a unified regulatory framework, with the council even having powers to issue takedown notices.
“You potentially have a wider scope in terms of who can issue takedown orders, which then feeds into the broader doctrine of information control whereby you try and suppress information that is inconvenient,” Mr Waghre added.
The government told the court in its defence on March 28 that Section 79(3)(b) balances platform liability and free speech while ensuring compliance with lawful orders. It added that the description of Sahyog portal as a censorship portal is “condemnable”, noting that 38 intermediaries such as Google and Amazon had already joined the portal.
Mr Shashank Reddy, managing partner at Evam Law & Policy, a Delhi-based tech policy advisory firm, said X’s lawsuit seeks to create a “more benign operating environment” for itself in India, for which Mr Trump has been advocating globally.
Not only does Section 79(3)(b) raise compliance costs for American tech firms in India by exposing them to a far greater number of takedown notices than under the more regulated Section 69, it also exposes them to the risk of losing their safe harbour. Any such move, noted Mr Reddy, could expose X’s management and employees in India to “everything from criminal investigations to civil defamation”.
Avoiding such legal wrangles is what the firm is seeking to avoid through its lawsuit. A court ruling in its favour will give X “some breathing space”, a valuable win in India, its third-biggest user market globally with an estimated 27 million users.
But given the political sensitivities involved, Mr Reddy said it is likely the case will not be decided in the courtroom. “There will be some sort of negotiation between X and the Indian government,” he added.
Media reports have indicated that the Indian government is already in talks with X after Grok 3, X’s artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot, whipped up a viral storm in India in March with its unrestrained responses, some of which came tinged with not just humour but also expletives.
Queries also led to politically controversial answers including one that said Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s claims regarding his educational background are “sketchy”, prompting many to quip that the chatbot enjoyed greater freedom of speech than Indians.
But the government’s response to Grok 3 has been relatively muted, unlike the backlash that Google faced when its AI platform Gemini suggested in 2024 that some experts believe Mr Modi’s policies are “fascist”. Gemini drew condemnation from no less than then Minister of State for Information Technology Rajeev Chandrasekhar, who accused Google of violating India’s laws, prompting the tech firm to apologise.
Mr Reddy said backchannel negotiations will address X’s lawsuit, which, he argues, X thinks has a better chance of succeeding now, given Mr Musk’s proximity to Mr Trump and his influence within the US administration – a factor that could soften the Indian government’s approach to the way American tech firms are allowed to operate in India.
“I think Musk or at least X’s leadership in India believes there is a window of opportunity for them to take on the government without necessarily drawing the government’s backlash,” he told ST.
* Debarshi Dasgupta is The Straits Times’ India correspondent covering the country and other parts of South Asia.
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