K’taka HC not happy with repeated adjournments of Twitter case

PTI, Jan 9, 2023, 7:23 PM IST

Bengaluru: The High Court of Karnataka on Monday expressed its displeasure at the Union Government seeking repeated adjournments in the petition filed by microblogging site Twitter against take-down orders issued by the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY).

Twitter’s case challenging blocking of accounts, posts and URLs without giving notice to account holders came up before Justice Krishna S Dixit.

The Central Government counsel sought adjournment of the hearing either to January 27 or February 3.

The court said that repeated adjournments were being sought on such an important matter.

”We are not at the government’s dictation like that. I don’t agree. What will people think? We are not at your beck and call. How many times have you taken adjournments. See the order sheet,” the court said.

The court said that it would give only one week and ordered listing of the case on January 18.

Twitter approached the High Court with its petition filed in June, 2022. It has claimed that the Government was required to issue notice to the owners of the twitter handles against whom blocking orders are issued.

It claimed, it was even barred from informing the account holders about the take-down.

Senior advocates Arvind Datar and Ashok Haranahalli have argued on behalf of Twitter.