Overview

• X argues the Sahyog Portal allows thousands of government officers to issue content-removal orders under Section 79(3)(b) without the procedural checks required by Section 69A and Supreme Court precedent.
• Senior advocate K G Raghavan told the Karnataka High Court that the current regime produces arbitrary and inconsistent censorship based on individual officers’ subjective judgments.
• The Union government acknowledged a recent railways order to remove a video of a woman driving on tracks was a misapplication but defended the portal as streamlining intermediary regulation.
• X highlighted that a July 3 blocking order under Section 69A forced it to suspend 2,355 accounts, including Reuters outlets, some of which were later restored.
• The court is set to hear X’s amended petition on July 11 and the government’s defense on July 17, focusing on proposed safeguards and the scope of takedown powers.