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By: Akshansh Pandey
On the 1st of July, 2025, the Karnataka High Court (State H.C of India) bore witness to the exchange between Elon Musk led social-media platform X Corp and the Union of India, represented by its Solicitor General, wherein X Corp contended that the new “Sahyog” portal launched by the Government of India [GoI] empowers “every Tom, Dick, and Harry” officer utilising the powers under Section 79(3)(b) of the Information Technology Act, 2000 to issue direct content-takedown orders thereby bypassing the previously litigated and calibrated safeguards of Section 69A and its accompanying Rules (2009). This matter, X Corp v. Union of India (W.P.(C) 7405 of 2025), cannot and should not be viewed merely as a corporate grievance; it essentially throws into the mix a broader, global phenomenon; that is the progressive arm-twisting of the executive of a particular government to enable the institutionalism of an opaque censorship mechanism.
To draw a comparison, the former regime under Section 69A required that a takedown order must first, be accompanied by a reasoned order from an inter-ministerial Committee, and second, provide the intermediaries (such as X, Facebook and others) of said order with an open window for review. The “Sahyog” portal on the other hand, mandates no transparency or appeal in relation to the order issued through it, and yet, carries immediate criminal liability for the intermediaries (the social media platforms) that fail to comply. Through this intricate design, the portal sidesteps and bypasses (a) notice to affected users, coupled with (b) judicial oversight, and additionally (c) leaves no remedy and does not create a publicly accessible registry of the orders issued. India’s Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) has repurposed Section 79(3)(b) as a de-facto censorship platform, it hollows out fundamental procedural protections that severely underpin the right to freedom of expression; enshrined under Article 19 of the ICCPR [to which India is a signatory], which demands that any restriction be “provided by law” and accompanied by “due process” safeguards (see General Comment No.34 ¶25).
Sahyog’s summary takedowns violate both elements of the ICCPR standards on the right to freedom of expression named above. The legal basis for the portal is opaque (no definition of “officer” or “unlawful content”), additionally, its aims are undefined (there is no published policy on thresholds for removal), and lastly, its process offers no remedy to the affected to challenge or seek to understand the rationale behind any order so passed. The portal therefore fails to circumscribe the authority capable to pass such orders, nor provide any mechanism as to how said order may be justified or reviewed. It essentially falls short of internationally recognized standards of procedural fairness, therefore highlighting an urgent need of regulatory overhaul in digital regulation so as to protect fundamental rights from peril.
The litigation thus raises the fundamental question: When expediency eclipses procedural fairness, how can democratic societies preserve the rule of law online?
The question gains urgency when compared with international frameworks that embed transparency, accountability, and judicial oversight into digital content regulation. Under the European Union’s Digital Services Act (DSA), platforms must furnish “detailed reasons” for every order issued, and subsequently notify all affected users without delay. The regulations also implement internal complaint-handling mechanisms which prescribe a remedy to the aggrieved to retain their right to escalate any dispute to national courts (Regulation (EU) 2022/2065, Articles 14–17). Designated coordinators are delegated the duty to oversee compliance and transparency which includes an annual disclosure of removal volumes and justification categories. In the United States, private platforms under Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act (47 U.S.C. § 230) are granted immunity, and any government mandated removal will give way to First Amendment (which prohibits government abridgment of freedom of speech) and Fifth Amendment (which requires due process of law before deprivation of life, liberty, or property) implications, and therefore trigger due-process protections. In cases such as that of Lamont v. Postmaster General, (381 U.S. 301 1965) the SCOTUS held that takedown orders without notice or judicial sign-offs will constitute an infringement of constitutional guarantees, and as such, even in national security contexts, all authorities are mandated by law to secure a court order before compelling an order of removal of protected speech. By situating India’s Sahyog portal alongside these established frameworks, it is clearly observed that the act of vesting of such grave powers onto unaccountable officers, with no prescribed appeals mechanism or remedies, places India at the illiberal end of the global spectrum on the issue of digital censorship.
Opaque takedown regimes breed grave chilling effects that have profound and under-acknowledged implications for human rights. The European Court of Human Rights in the case of Delfi AS v. Estonia (2015) emphasized that censorship of comments, must be done in a transparent manner, consistent with the due process of law to avoid “chilling effects”. The Supreme Court of India [SCI] in Shreya Singhal v. Union of India (2015), struck down Section 66A of the IT Act on the grounds of vagueness and overbreadth, on account that any restriction on free speech must be accounted with clear guidelines and cannot in any condition, vest unfettered discretion in authorities. Similarly, in Anuradha Bhasin v. Union of India (2020), the Court ruled that shutdowns under the Telegraph Act must prescribe meaningful procedural safeguards, that must include a notice, an opportunity to be heard, and lastly, judicial review. Sahyog’s mechanisms precisely mirror the very same limitations and failures that the SCI has condemned in these cases. The lack of availability of a statutory claim on scope, prior notice, and mechanism for an independent oversight, contravene the judgments.
In a momentous ruling, India stands at a crossroads for digital freedom. In a landmark decision on 24 September 2025, the Karnataka High dismissed X Corp’s challenge and upheld the Sahyog portal as a constitutional tool of regulation. India now faces a turning point for digital freedom: by affirming Sahyog, the Court has embraced a model in which any government officer, at their own discretion, can silence the voices of the citizens of the nation without any recourse. Such a precedent risks normalizing administrative opacity worldwide, enabling the suppression of dissent across digital platforms. The Court has been entrusted with a decision whose ripples extend well beyond India’s borders, posing a critical question: Will democracies reinforce the rule of law, or will they yield to the temptation of expediency, sacrificing fundamental rights on the altar of real‑time control? The stakes could not be higher.
Akshansh Pandey is a law student at Gujarat National Law University, Gandhinagar, India. His research interests encompass constitutional law, human rights law, and Free Speech.[Institutional Webpage Link: https://www.gnlu.ac.in/GNLU/Home__] [Author's linkedin:_https://www.linkedin.com/in/akshansh-pandey-ab8531263/]