Delhi High Court Seeks Lieutenant Governor's Reply On Plea Challenging Police Power To Issue Social Media Takedown Notices

New Delhi: The Delhi High Court has sought the response of the Lieutenant Governor on a plea challenging a notification issued by him empowering police to issue takedown notices for social media content.

A bench of Chief Justice D K Upadhyaya and Justice Tushar Rao Gedela issued notice to the LG and the Union Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology and asked them to file replies within six weeks.

The court listed the matter for further hearing on September 17.

The bench was hearing a plea filed by Software Freedom Law Center (SFLC) challenging the legality and constitutional validity of the notification issued by the LG that designated Delhi Police as the nodal agency under the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021, empowering it to issue takedown notices for online content.

The notification empowers Delhi Police officers to issue takedown orders to social media companies and other intermediaries to remove illegal content under the Information Technology Act.

Advocate Talha Abdul Rahman, representing the petitioner, contended that this designation has no basis in law and neither Section 79 of the Information Technology Act, nor the IT Rules, 2021 confer any authority to appoint such a nodal agency.

"The statutory power to block or remove online content is exclusively vested in the Central Government under Section 69A of the IT Act, read with the Information Technology (Procedure and Safeguards for Blocking for Access of Information by Public) Rules, 2009. The impugned notification, by granting these powers to the police, oversteps constitutional and statutory boundaries and is, therefore, ultra vires the parent legislation," the plea said.

It further said that allowing police officers to unilaterally issue takedown notices, without judicial or independent oversight, opens the door to unchecked censorship and arbitrary restriction of constitutionally protected speech.

It contended that such a move violates Articles 19(1)(a) and 21 of the Constitution and contradicts the landmark judgments of the Supreme Court which emphasise the need for legal safeguards and proportionality in actions impacting fundamental rights.

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