New Delhi: Social media platform X is “liable to lose” its safe harbour protection in India because it failed to act against journalist Rana Ayyub’s posts despite receiving “actual knowledge” of their alleged unlawful nature, the Modi government told the Delhi High Court.
The warning, contained in a note, marks one of the most direct invocations of the safe harbour threat against the platform since the government made a similar declaration in 2021. Safe harbour protection is the statutory immunity that shields social media platforms from legal liability for content posted by their users.
In July 2021, the government had publicly stated that Twitter (before it became X in July 2023) lost its safe harbour protection for failing to appoint a Resident Grievance Officer under the Information Technology Rules.
That declaration was contested, never adjudicated to finality, and Twitter eventually complied with the IT Rules, 2021—specifically, appointing a Resident Grievance Officer, a Chief Compliance Officer, and a Nodal Contact Person. The current case involves not a structural compliance failure but an allegation of inaction in the face of specific, identified content that a criminal court has flagged.
It has raised three distinct legal questions before the court: whether X Corp can be compelled by a writ petition to remove content, whether a social media platform can lose its statutory immunity for inaction, and what the constitutionally valid procedure for blocking online content actually is.
Against the backdrop of a sweeping draft amendment to India’s intermediary rules presently in public consultation, the case has broader implications for how the law governs what social media platforms host.
The Centre’s submission came in response to a petition filed by Amita Sachdeva, who alleged that Ayyub’s six posts, published between 2013 and 2017, were offensive to Hindu sentiments and promoted communal disharmony. One of the tweets was about Hindutva icon Savarkar.
“Let’s see what X does, we will wait for them to take action and then decide what we need to do,” a senior MeitY (Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology) official told ThePrint.
Also Read: Delhi HC says Rana Ayyub’s posts on Hindu deities & Army ‘highly derogatory’, orders takedown
Safe harbour argument
The most consequential legal argument concerns Section 79 of the Information Technology (IT) Act, 2000, which grants intermediaries immunity from liability for third-party content. This safe harbour is not absolute.
Section 79(3)(b) strips the protection when, upon receiving actual knowledge or being notified by the appropriate government or its agency that content is being used to commit an unlawful act, the intermediary fails to act expeditiously to remove or disable access to it.
The Centre argued that X received “actual knowledge” of the allegedly unlawful nature of Ayyub’s posts through two channels: the Delhi Police notices of September and December 2025, and the CJM’s January 2025 order.
The above-mentioned note invoked Rule 03(1)(b) read with Rule 03(1)(d) of the IT (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021, which impose a due diligence obligation on intermediaries to ensure users do not host content that incites offences or affects public order.
The Centre’s submission was direct: “Such inaction amounts to non-compliance with the due diligence requirements provided for in the applicable Rules and facilitates commission of unlawful acts by its user i.e. Rana Ayyub, and as a consequence thereof the protection of safe harbor available to the intermediary under Section 79(1) is liable to be withdrawn.”
This section reinforces the Centre’s position: an intermediary that fails to observe due diligence loses the Section 79(1) protection entirely and becomes liable for punishment under any applicable law.
X Corp’s position
X filed written submissions taking a different view. Drawing on Section 11 of the IT Act, it argued that liability for content rests with the “originator”—Ayyub, not the platform.
The IT Act treats originators and intermediaries as mutually exclusive categories, X submitted.
Given that the originator is a party to the petition, X contended, the removal directions should go against the journalist. In doing so, it cited the Asif Iqbal Tanha vs State of NCT of Delhi (2021) and the Ocean Lifespaces India Pvt. Ltd. vs The Hindu (2024) judgements.
The Delhi High Court, in the 2021 judgement, deleted intermediaries from the array of respondents because directions for removal of unlawful content could be enforced directly against the identified originator.
Similarly, the Madras High Court in 2024 vacated an interim order against an intermediary, ruling such an order would affect the originator’s rights when the originator was already arrayed as a party.
Further, X invoked the Supreme Court’s landmark 2015 ruling in Shreya Singhal vs Union of India, wherein it held that under Section 69A of the IT Act, a blocking order can be passed either by the Designated Officer after following the IT (Procedure and Safeguards for Blocking for Access of Information by Public) Rules, or by the Designated Officer acting on a court order.
The social media platform noted that the government used Section 69A blocking orders against other Ayyub posts in June 2021 and August 2023, demonstrating the process was available and functional.
The Delhi Police and the government should either follow the process under Section 69A and issue a formal blocking order, or alternatively issue a takedown direction against Ayyub directly, it asserted.
X also contended that the writ petition is not maintainable against it because X is not the ‘State’ within Article 12 (which defines the ‘State’) of the Constitution and does not perform a public function compliant with writ jurisdiction under Article 226 (which empowers High Courts to issue writs).
The larger context
The case unfolds against a shifting regulatory backdrop. On 30 March, the MeitY released the draft Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Second Amendment Rules, 2026, inviting public comments by 14 April.
Though the government described it as “clarificatory and procedural in nature,” the proposed direction is clear.
The most consequential provision is a newly inserted Rule 3(4), which requires platforms to comply with any clarification, advisory, order, direction, standard operating procedure, code of practice, or guideline issued by the ministry in writing. Compliance with these instruments is made a condition of safe harbour under Section 79 of the IT Act.
While the MeitY has issued advisories to platforms in the past, there was previously no rule-based mechanism that tied compliance to the loss of statutory immunity. The draft closes that gap.
The Internet Freedom Foundation called it “digital authoritarianism,” warning that the practical outcome would be over-compliance and over-censorship. Platforms would aggressively remove content to avoid existential legal exposure, the digital rights advocacy organisation said.
(Edited by Tony Rai)