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X, the social media platform owned by Elon Musk, has filed a lawsuit against the Indian government, alleging that the country's IT ministry has unlawfully expanded censorship powers, enabling the easier removal of online content and empowering "countless" government officials to execute such orders. The lawsuit marks an escalation in the ongoing legal dispute between X and Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government over content takedown orders.
It also comes as Musk is getting closer to launching his other key ventures Starlink and Tesla in India.
In the new court filing dated March 5, X argues India’s IT Ministry is asking other departments to use a government website launched by the Ministry of Home Affairs last year to issue content blocking orders and mandate social media companies to join the website too.
This mechanism, X says, does not contain the stringent Indian legal safeguards on content removal that required such orders to be issued in cases such as harm to sovereignty or public order, and came with strict oversight of top officials.
India’s IT ministry redirected a Reuters’ request for comment to the home affairs ministry, which did not respond.
The website creates “an impermissible parallel mechanism” that causes “unrestrained censorship of information in India,” X said, adding it is seeking to quash the directive.
In 2021, X, formerly called Twitter, was locked in a stand-off with the Indian government over non-compliance of legal orders to block certain tweets related to a farmers’ protest against government policies. X later complied following public criticism by officials, but its legal challenge to the decision is continuing in Indian courts.
X’s court papers are not public and were reported for the first time by the media on Thursday.
The case was briefly heard earlier this week by a judge in the High Court of southern Karnataka state but no final decision was reached. It will now be heard on March 27.
