NEW DELHI: A authorized battle between Elon Musk‘s social media platform X and the Centre intensified on Tuesday, after X’s lawyer accused the federal government of permitting “each Tom, Dick, and Harry” official to difficulty content material takedown orders. The comment sparked robust pushback from authorities’s authorized crew, information company Reuters reported.The remark got here throughout a listening to within the Karnataka excessive courtroom, the place X is difficult a government-run web site it describes as a “censorship portal.” In the course of the listening to, X’s lawyer KG Raghavan cited a current case the place the Indian Railways demanded removing of a video displaying a automotive on railway tracks, a video X mentioned certified as information.“That is the hazard, My Lord, that’s achieved now, if each Tom, Dick, and Harry officer is authorised,” Raghavan was quoted as saying by Reuters.The phrase drew speedy objection from Solicitor Basic Tushar Mehta, who mentioned: “Officers should not Tom, Dick, or Harry … they’re statutory functionaries. No social media middleman can count on utterly unregulated functioning.”Earlier in March, the Centre had strongly objected to social media platform’s description of the ‘Sahyog’ portal as a “censorship” software, calling the allegation “unlucky” and “condemnable” in an in depth affidavit submitted to the Karnataka excessive courtroom.In response to X Corp’s authorized problem to India’s content-blocking mechanisms, the federal government had argued that the platform had misinterpret provisions of the Data Expertise Act, notably Sections 69A and 79(3)(b).X Corp contended that Part 79(3)(b) doesn’t permit the federal government to difficulty content material takedown orders with out following the safeguards laid out beneath Part 69A and the Supreme Court docket’s judgment within the Shreya Singhal case. The Centre, nonetheless, asserted that Part 69A clearly supplies for blocking orders beneath particular circumstances, with applicable checks and procedures.The federal government clarified that Part 79(3)(b) solely defines the obligations of intermediaries and that failure to adjust to authorized directives may result in shedding protected harbour protections beneath Rule 7 of the 2021 IT Guidelines. It accused X Corp of conflating takedown “notices” issued beneath Part 79(3)(b) with formal “blocking orders” beneath Part 69A—two distinct processes, as beforehand acknowledged by the Supreme Court docket.The Centre additional emphasised that X, as a international industrial entity, has no inherent proper to publish or defend third-party content material beneath Indian legislation. Citing a earlier Karnataka excessive courtroom ruling in a case involving Twitter, the federal government reiterated that Articles 19 and 21 of the Indian Structure don’t prolong to such entities.With its submitting, the Centre bolstered its stance that India’s authorized framework on content material moderation is lawful, balanced, and never indicative of presidency overreach.