The Delhi High Court on Monday ordered the restoration of the satirical X account known as Dr Nimo Yadav.
Why Dr Nimo Yadav restored matters
Justice Purushaindra Kumar Kaurav, however, kept certain tweets blocked for the time being. The Central government had identified those tweets as objectionable.
The Court also directed the account operator to appear before a Review Committee. The committee will decide whether the tweets should remain under block.
“The alleged objectionable tweets stated in the blocking order be put under temporary blocking catorgory. The petitioner’s account be restored. The Government of India is at liberty to monitor material and if further objectionable material is posted, it is at liberty to take recourse as per law,” the Court said.
The order came on a plea by Prateek Sharma, who runs the Dr Nimo Yadav X account. The Central government blocked the account in India on March 19.
Sharma challenged that action before the High Court. He also asked the Court to direct the government to produce its blocking order.
During an earlier hearing, the government explained its decision. It said the account spread “false narratives involving the Prime Minister” and portrayed him “in bad taste.”
On March 18, the Central government issued an order to X, formerly Twitter, and directed the platform to block the account. X later placed that confidential order and related documents before the Court.
In the blocking order, the government said the Dr Nimo Yadav account carried defamatory posts. It said the account used photographs, videos and AI-manipulated content to create controversial posts that questioned the government and defamed Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The government also said such false information could affect public order and create internal security threats.
The papers before the Court also showed that the March 18 blocking order covered 11 other Twitter handles.
Sharma argued that the continued block caused him loss of income. He also said it disrupted his professional engagements because the account served as his source of livelihood. His counsel submitted that they would take necessary steps, if required, once they identified the allegedly offending material.
Appearing for Sharma, Vrinda Grover questioned why the government did not give her client the March 18 blocking order before it blocked the account on March 19.
She said Sharma received the blocking order only after he filed a writ petition before the High Court.
“The legal scheme cannot be that you violate my rights to avoid judicial scrutiny. The blocking order is totally illegal, arbitrary order from 19th March today, being 6th of April. I want my account to be reopened. They have delineated 10 tweets. This is not within domain of Section 69A. If these are the offending tweets, I would delete these particular tweets and restore my account,” she argued.
For the Central government, Additional Solicitor General Chetan Sharma urged the Court to act with caution before it interfered with the government’s decision.
“It needs to be thrashed out. You (X account holder) make certain disparaging remarks against the Head of the country, foreign relations so on. The damage has been done. Everybody will now write piggyback on this,” he argued.
Counsel for X also opposed deleting the entire account. Counsel said that step would not be appropriate.
“If the petitioner deletes these tweets and ultimately my whole Lord holds that these were free speech, then there’s no way to restore them (if the account is deleted as a whole). So deletion, in my submission, would not be the appropriate remedy, because then it’s gone. I can hand over screenshots of these tweets, and my Lord can see if it actually needs to be deleted. We can, in the interim, block them (individual tweets/ X posts),” X’s counsel said.
Advocates Vrinda Grover, Nakul Gandhi, Apar Gupta and Soutik Banerjee appeared for Sharma.
Advocate Ankit Parhar appeared for Twitter.
Additional Solicitor General Chetan Sharma and Advocate Avshreya Rudy appeared for the Central government.
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