A divisional judge of the Karnataka High Court on Thursday stayed a judge’s order imposing costs of Rs. X (formerly known as Twitter) was fined Rs 50 lakh for not complying with the order of the Ministry of IT – provided that the company deposits 50% of the amount (Rs 2.5 lakh) within a week.
The court said the deposit was to demonstrate X’s sincerity. Order of a single judge directing X to deposit Rs. As of August 14, Rs 50 lakh will be reserved until the next hearing.
“Therefore, the deposit is Rs. 2.5 lakh and the order of the single bench shall remain until the next hearing date,” the high court said.
A bench of judges consisting of Chief Justice Prasanna B Varale and Justice MGS Kamal is hearing the microblogging site’s petition against Justice Krishna S Dixit’s order, which dismissed its control over tweets (posts), URLs and hashtags. A single judge also imposed costs on the company in its June 30 judgment.
In his interim order on Thursday, the department judge said, “We directed the appellant to deposit Rs. 2.5 lakhs in this court within a week.” However, handing over the money “may not be be deemed to have been accepted by the court as fair in favor of the appellant”. The single judge held that the company had failed to comply with the orders of the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeiTY) for more than a year before appealing the orders to the High Court.
MeiTY issued 10 government orders between February 2, 2021 and February 28, 2022 under Section 69A of the Information Technology Act, directing it to block 1,474 accounts, 175 tweets, 256 URLs and a hashtags. X (then Twitter) challenged commands related to 39 of these URLs.
On Thursday, X was represented by lawyer Manu Kulkarni, while central government counsel Kumar MN argued on behalf of MeiTY. Government lawyers have argued that the case cannot sustain itself.
However, the chamber judge noted that the single-judge judge upheld X’s position, filing a petition against blocking its users’ tweets and handles.
HC likened X to a store selling a variety of products, and the committee found that selling substandard products amounted to taking action against the store owner. After granting interim relief in an interim order, the chamber judge postponed the appeal hearing for two weeks.
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