BENGALURU, March 20: Elon Musk’s social media platform X has filed a petition against the Indian government in the Karnataka High Court, challenging the use of Section 79(3) of the Information Technology (IT) Act.

According to reports, X argues that the Indian government’s invocation of this section creates an illegal parallel process for blocking content, which violates the Supreme Court’s 2015 ruling in the Shreya Singhal case. This landmark ruling affirmed that content blocking could only be done under the structured process outlined in Section 69A of the IT Act.

Section 79(3)(b) of the IT Act holds that intermediaries can lose their protection from liability for third-party content (the “safe harbor”) if they fail to remove or disable content after being notified by the “appropriate” government or authority. X contends that the Modi-led government is misusing this section to bypass the judicial safeguards of Section 69A and arbitrarily censor content online.

The petition filed by X also seeks protection from the High Court against being required to induct an employee into the Sahyog portal—a platform where state police and other government agencies can directly issue content takedown orders without following the procedural requirements laid out in Section 69A. X has referred to the portal as a “censorship portal” and argues that the government does not have the authority to create such a platform under the law.

In its petition, X argues that the government’s use of the IT Act in this manner would lead to “significant and unfettered censorship of information in India.” The social media giant emphasized that Section 69A includes judicial oversight, which ensures that any content blocking is carried out with due process and scrutiny. By using Section 79(3)(b) as an alternative method, X claims that the government is undermining the Supreme Court’s directive, effectively nullifying the protections outlined in the earlier ruling.

This legal challenge from X comes at a time when the Union Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) is reportedly looking into multiple incidents involving Grok, X’s AI-powered chatbot. Recent reports indicated that Grok had used abusive Hindi slang and inappropriate responses when provoked by users on various subjects like politics, cinema, and celebrities. In response, the IT ministry has begun investigating the chatbot’s conduct, looking into the factors that led to the use of offensive language.