The Gujarat government repeatedly used an impugned provision of the Information Technology Act to direct X (formerly Twitter) to remove tweets critical of industrialist Gautam Adani and, to a lesser extent, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, latest submissions by the company in the Karnataka High Court show. At least seven takedown notices were issued by Bipin Ahire, the inspector general of police of Gujarat Police, under Section 79(3)(b) of the IT Act read along with Rule 3(1)(d) of the Information Technology Rules, 2021. Each of these notices cited Section 353 of the Bharatiya Nyaya Nahita, 2023, the provision that criminalises statements conducing to public mischief with imprisonment of up to three/five years and/or a fine.

These submissions were made by X on July 28 in its appeal against a single judge’s judgement that dismissed the company’s petition challenging the use of Section 79(3)(b) of the IT Act to issue takedown notices, the constitutionality of Rule 3(1)(d) of IT Rules, and the creation of Indian Cyber Crime Coordination Centre’s (I4C) Sahyog portal meant to “streamline” takedown notices sent under these two provisions. The Tech Trace has reviewed X’s submission of these additional documents.