A single judge-bench comprising Justice Krishna S Dixit of the Karnataka High Court posted the first hearing in the writ petition filed by Twitter against the Section 69A orders under the IT Act 2000 served to it by the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) for August 25th. The hearing was postponed since the government submitted that Tushar Mehta, Solicitor General of India, could not appear for the matter as he was down with Covid-19 in New Delhi. Twitter was represented at the hearing by Senior Advocate Mukul Rohatgi. While the proceedings were brief today, we have summarised the statements made, below. At the next hearing, Justice Dixit said that the merits of the matter will be examined to ascertain if it could be taken up further. Why it matters? The proceeding in the case would have high precedential value in cases of government blocking orders as well as intermediaries' compliance with the same. This would especially be the case on August 25 when the Court will decide on the merits of the petition itself which challenges several such blocking orders passed by MeitY for content on its platform. Long standing, overarching concerns over the Section 69A have persisted with experts often criticising it for being opaque and wide. It must be noted that this would mark the second or third instance that Twitter has been at loggerheads with the Indian government over content moderation. Blocking orders impact Twitter's business: Rohatgi in court During the hearing, Rohatgi claimed that…
