Edition 24: Second legal challenge filed against MeitY's March 18 order blocking 12 X accounts

The owner of X account @Nher_who has challenged the Centre's Section 69A blocking order against his X account, citing violations of the blocking law and rules.

Kumar Nayan, a 34-year-old resident of Bihar, best known for his X (formerly Twitter) handle called Nehr_who? (@Nher_who) has challenged the Centre’s Section 69A blocking order against his X account. In a writ petition filed in the Delhi High Court, he argued that the government had violated the 2009 Blocking Rules by not giving him a hearing despite his details being available with X, and by not giving him a copy of the blocking order.

Nayan argued that the Centre had deprived him of his fundamental right to freedom of speech and expression through its “illegal, arbitrary, and disproportionate” decision to block his X account within India. He said that the blocking of his account “disabled” his “ability to disseminate information and participate in public discourse within India”.

In his writ petition, Nayan wants the court to direct the Indian government and X to restore his account within the country, and to direct the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) to share the blocking order and its supporting material with him. He also wants to the court to issue a direction that any “censorship on social media” must be carried out as per the Information Technology Act, the 2009 Blocking Rules, and while adhering to fundamental rights granted under Article 14 (equality before law), 19(1)(a) (right of freedom of speech and expression), and 21 (protection of life and personal liberty).

X user Nehr_who?’s writ petition is the second challenge to be filed against MeitY’s March 18 blocking order that directed X to block 12 accounts under Section 69A of the IT Act. Prateek Sharma had challenged the blocking of his X account, @DrNimoYadav, on March 28. Sharma’s petition was heard by Justice Purushaindra Kumar Kaurav on March 30, the same judge before whom Nayan’s petition is listed for hearing today.

Nayan’s petition, a copy of which The Tech Trace has reviewed, does not mention a specific blocking order from MeitY; only that his account was blocked in March 2026 and that he had received an email about the blocking from X on March 19.

However, it is known from X’s submission in the case filed by Sharma (a copy of which The Tech Trace has reviewed, and whose details were first reported by Bar and Bench on March 30) that Sharma and Nayan’s accounts — @DrNimoYadav and @Nher_who, respectively — were two of the 12 X accounts against which MeitY had issued a Section 69A blocking order on March 18.

Two of Nayan’s arguments — lack of an opportunity to be heard, and account level blocking as a disproportionate response — echo X’s arguments against the March 18 blocking order.

X, on March 19, had written to the Section 69A designated officer (the officer responsible for convening the Section 69A Blocking Committee’s meeting where the user and/or the intermediary are given an opportunity to be heard about the links/apps that the government wants to block) that it had withheld access to the 12 X accounts “under protest” because the order targeted content that did not violate the Section 69A grounds, account level blocking was a disproportionate response, and the affected users had not been given an opportunity to be heard.

Nayan created the @nher_who X account in October 2016 and bought the blue tick under the Twitter Blue programme on June 7, 2025, for which he paid the prescribed fee and submitted his “personal identification details”. He monetises his X content through the platform’s “Creator Monetization” programme and has earned $6,336.64 since enrolling in it. His next payout is due on April 10, 2026, as per the partial record of payments annexed in his petition.

The petition describes him as an electrical engineer with “substantial digital presence” who regularly comments on “sociopolitical developments, public affairs, current events, and matters of general public interest through various digital platforms”.

At the time of its blocking in India had 249,900 followers as per his petition. When The Tech Trace checked his account late night on April 5, he had about 241,600 followers.

(L-R): Message displayed on accessing @Nher_who without a VPN in India on April 6, 2026; @Nher_who account visible on using a VPN in India on April 6, 2026

‘Blocking procedure not followed, no hearing given’

Nayan said that his account was blocked without any prior notice to him, without giving him an opportunity to be heard, and without him being served a reasoned blocking order. This, he said, was illegal and also violative of the Supreme Court’s Shreya Singhal judgement of 2015.

The 2015 apex court judgement had upheld Section 69A because the underlying blocking rules of 2009 provided for an opportunity to be heard before the blocking committee, and gave the user an opportunity to challenge the blocking order in court.

In his petition, Nayan said that on receipt of the email from X on March 19 at 12:23 am, he wrote to the Centre (at cyberlaw@meity.gov.in) at 4:16 am, seeking a clarification and review of the order to restore the visibility of his account in India.

Nine days later, on March 27 at 10:52 am, MeitY’s Section 69A cell replied to Nayan’s email (from the same email address), asking him to share his “valid government issued ID cards for identity verification”. “Once verified, you will be given an opportunity of hearing before the Inter Ministerial Committee to submit your views/clarifications,” the email read.

Readers should note that what is referred to as the “Inter-Ministerial Committee” is colloquially also called the “[Section] 69A Blocking Committee”, that is, the committee formed under Rule 7 of the 2009 Blocking Rules meant to examine blocking requests received from nodal officers of different ministries and state governments.

Nayan replied to this email on March 30 where he said that the designated officer’s office had violated the law by issuing the blocking order against his account without giving him a pre-decisional hearing (in case the order was a normal blocking order), by not giving his a post-decisional hearing within 48 hours of blocking (in case the order was an emergency order), and by not giving him a copy of the order itself.

“Without prejudice to my rights to challenge these blocking actions before a court of law, I am attaching my government ID to this email even though there is no such requirement present under the Blocking Rules, 2009,” his March 30 email said.

In the petition, Nayan called the March 27 email from MeitY “belated compliance” which was sent after “an inordinate and unexplained delay”. He submitted that the offer to hear him before the blocking committee was extended only after his account had been blocked and remained inaccessible for more than 48 hours, “thereby breaching the statutory timelines set in the Blocking Rules, 2009”.

“The impugned action has been undertaken without any pre-decisional hearing, and the subsequent attempt to provide a hearing is merely post facto and legally untenable,” the petition read. Calling the “purported offer of hearing” “illusory”, he said that MeitY’s email lacked any “concrete particulars” such as the date, time, venue or virtual link for the hearing.

Nayan argued that even if his account had been blocked via an emergency blocking order under Rule 9, the post-blocking hearing had to be convened within 48 hours of blocking, that is, before 12:23 am on March 21.

The Tech Trace has learnt that at least two other account holders whose X accounts were blocked following the March 18 blocking order had emailed MeitY’s Cyber Laws division.

Both these individuals, including Sandeep Singh (@ActivistSandeep) — who described himself as a Dalit rights activist and journalist in a conversation with me —, received identical emails from MeitY on March 27 seeking identity verification. Singh said that he replied to Meity’s March 27 (10:51 am) email with his voter card and Aadhaar details but did not receive a response.

Nayan submitted that the lack of fair hearing, details of specific allegations, and grounds for blocking meant that he could not defend himself. He also argued that X’s March 19 to him was not a valid or sufficient notice in law as it was “vague and unintelligible”, did not list the specific grounds and reasons for blocking, only reproduced the language of Section 69A without giving any relevant facts, particulars or allegations to him, and lacked the evidence used to make the decision to block his account.

‘Give me a copy of the blocking order’

Citing a May 2022 Delhi High Court order, Nayan sought the original blocking order. In this order, the court had directed MeitY to give Tanul Thakur, the petitioner and owner of the satirical website dowrycalculator.com, the original blocking order with information related to third parties redacted.

Nayan argued that the blocking order could not be kept “confidential” from him as he was the aggrieved party. He said that since the order had also been given to X, there was no reason to not give it to him.

‘Blocking entire account is disproportionate’

Nayan said that instead of blocking specific tweets, by blocking his entire account, the government had acted disproportionately and pre-emptively blocked his future content, thereby violating Section 69A which does not permit pre-emptive blocking. MeitY had acted illegally by unlawfully presuming that all his future speech would be illegal and run afoul of Section 69A, he argued.

“Blocking an entire account on a social media platform is a qualitatively different restriction and given that it amounts to a prior restraint of speech and pre-censorship, and has to meet a higher proportionality threshold and reasoned orders to satisfy the test under Section 69A,” he argued in his petition.

Nayan submitted that he has always “complied with all content-specific take down requests” issued by the government. It is not clear what was the nature of such “requests” or how they were issued by the government to Nayan directly.

“The End”