In the days around the 10–11 October Cockroach Janta Party (CJP) protests demanding the resignation of Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar, the state used three tools at once. Delhi Police's cybercrime monitoring department reportedly issued more than 200 takedown orders through the Sahyog portal ahead of the protest, according to MediaNama's reporting of an Economic Times account. That count rests on people familiar with the matter, and MediaNama notes it may not include orders from other police units. MeitY sent platforms an unpublished advisory on 8 October. The Committee to Protect Journalists counted at least 37 journalists detained.
The strongest case for the government
The state's argument deserves a fair statement. Mass protests move fast. Doctored videos, false claims of violence or fabricated police orders can spread within hours and can provoke real disorder. A government that waits for a court order or a full Section 69A committee hearing may act only after the harm is done. Police are also the first to see unlawful incitement, so routing their requests to platforms through one portal is arguably more orderly than ad hoc phone calls.
The Karnataka High Court accepted much of this reasoning. On 24 September 2025, in X Corp v. Union of India (WP 7405/2025), Justice M. Nagaprasanna dismissed X's challenge. According to Columbia's Global Freedom of Expression summary, the court upheld both the Sahyog portal and the use of Section 79(3)(b) to issue takedown orders. X is now appealing, per MediaNama.
Where the argument fails
The trouble is what Section 79(3)(b) actually is. The Supreme Court in Shreya Singhal v. Union of India (2015) called Section 79 an exemption provision. It read down the "actual knowledge" trigger so that an intermediary must act only after a court order, or a government notification, that "strictly conform[s] to the subject matters" in Article 19(2). By contrast, it described Section 69A as "a narrowly drawn provision with several safeguards". Those safeguards include written reasons, a committee hearing, a hearing for the originator where identified, and a 48-hour referral for emergency orders. MediaNama's report notes that the Section 79(3)(b) route lacks these protections.
That gap matters most during a protest. Section 69A orders must record reasons that a user can challenge in a writ petition. Sahyog orders, by contrast, are disclosed with no metrics at all. The Internet Freedom Foundation's Apar Gupta is quoted by MediaNama saying: "There is no transparent disclosure by the Delhi Police of any metrics." We cannot say whether any of the 200-plus orders met the Article 19(2) test, because nobody outside the government can see them. That is the point. A framework that cannot be audited cannot show it is proportionate.
The human cost is already visible. IFF told MediaNama that nearly 20 people approached it after Instagram removed or restricted their accounts over protest posts, and SFLC.in's tracker recorded more than 60 takedowns and account restrictions between 9 and 11 October. Account-level restrictions are blunter than removing one post. They silence a person's whole feed during the one window when the speech matters.
The advisory makes platforms the filter
The 8 October advisory compounds the problem. According to IFF's analysis, it asks platforms to apply "enhanced diligence" to false or misleading content tied to "ongoing public events and developments," and to prioritise complaints from "authorised Government agencies" on public-order content. IFF says it cites no legal provision, that "enhanced diligence" appears in neither the IT Act nor the IT Rules, and that it drops the "knowingly and intentionally" qualifier found in Rule 3(1)(b)(v). IFF also says it adds "social tranquility," which is not an Article 19(2) ground. These are IFF's readings. MeitY has not published the text, so outsiders cannot check them against the document itself.
A platform handed vague duties and a government priority queue has an obvious incentive: remove first, ask questions never. Over-removal is the rational response when the penalty for leaving content up is loss of safe harbour and the penalty for removing it is nothing. SFLC.in's description, per MediaNama, is that the advisory makes platforms "the arbiters of truth."
Detentions and the Supreme Court
The offline picture matches the online one. MediaNama reports that digital outlets and YouTube journalists were turned away or held because they lacked Press Information Bureau cards, while some reporters from established outlets were let through. Al Jazeera, citing Reuters and The Hindu, put the Delhi detention figure at roughly 2,000 to 2,500 people. On 11 October a Supreme Court bench of Justices Joymalya Bagchi and V. Mohana found a prima facie case of contempt and directed that "Internet facilities should function unhindered" and that journalists "shall not be hindered in discharge of their professional duties in any manner whatsoever." MediaNama reports that detentions continued after that direction, while the Solicitor General denied any illegal detention.
What proportionate policy looks like
None of this requires abandoning rapid response to genuinely dangerous content. It requires four things:
- Use 69A for blocking. If speech is serious enough to remove, the state can use the route the Supreme Court found constitutionally safe, including its emergency provision.
- Publish the advisory. Binding expectations on platforms should be public and tied to a statutory provision.
- Report Sahyog volumes. Aggregate counts by agency, legal ground and outcome would let courts and the public test proportionality.
- Notify affected users. A person whose account is restricted during a protest should know who asked and why.
The Delhi High Court challenge to the police's nodal-agency role and X's appeal are the right venues to test these questions. Until they are decided, the weeks around the CJP protests are the clearest evidence of why Shreya Singhal tied takedown power to Article 19(2) and to procedural safeguards.