On Monday, 28 September 2026, Instagram began withholding cartoonist Satish Acharya's account in India. MediaNama reported that the account banner cites 'legal requirements' under the IT (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules. The notice on one restricted cartoon is more specific. It cites a notice from 'The Government of India / Law Enforcement under Section 79(3)(b)' of the Information Technology Act, 2000. The News Minute reported that Acharya received no notice or reason. A cartoon by Manjul, depicting an EVM and a mismatched VVPAT slip, was also restricted in India. The issuing agency has not been disclosed.
The strongest case for the government
The government's position deserves a fair hearing. Platforms host content at enormous scale. Some of it is defamatory, incites violence, or is plainly unlawful, and waiting for a court order each time can leave harm unchecked for days. A fast notice-and-action channel gives law enforcement a way to reach platforms that may not respond to ordinary correspondence. Rule 3(1)(d) of the IT Rules ties a platform's duty to act to a government notification, so the platform is not left to guess what counts as unlawful. That is a legitimate design goal.
Where the design breaks down
The problem is which provision is being used. In Shreya Singhal v. Union of India (2015), the Supreme Court struck down Section 66A and left Section 69A standing. Section 69A is the statutory blocking power, and it comes with procedural safeguards: a committee, a reasoned order and a hearing. MediaNama's analysis makes the contrast. Section 79(3)(b) is a condition on a platform's immunity, not a blocking power. It says the platform must act on a government notice or risk losing safe harbour. Used this way, it turns a liability rule into a takedown instrument without the safeguards the Court relied on in 2015.
This question is now before the Supreme Court. ThePrint reported that on 22 July 2026 a bench led by Chief Justice Surya Kant stayed four High Court challenges: two in Karnataka (X Corp and DigiPub News India Foundation) and two in Bombay (Kunal Kamra and Haresh Jagtiani). It listed the Union's transfer petition for 10 August. The petitioners argue that the Sahyog portal lets ministries, state departments and police direct removals without the procedure and safeguards the existing law requires.
The stay means no court is currently deciding whether the route is lawful, while notices keep flowing. According to MediaNama's account of Indian Express reporting, nearly two lakh directions went to Instagram, Facebook and YouTube between March and July 2026. That is roughly 1,275 a day, with about 100,000 to Instagram. At that volume, per-notice review by a committee is impossible by design. That is the case for not routing speech takedowns through a channel built for speed.
Why the Acharya case is the stress test
A proportionate regime has to answer a few questions. Is the content unlawful? Who decided that? Can the speaker respond? In this case, none of those answers is public. The restricted material is political satire aimed at a constitutional body. One recent cartoon, as The News Minute described it, shows the Chief Election Commissioner telling two dissenting commissioners their objections were 'never ignored' while pointing to a bin of papers. Whatever one thinks of it, satire of a public institution is the kind of speech Article 19(1)(a) protects most strongly. Acharya says some restricted cartoons date from 2023, so the action reached older archived work and not only the recent posts.
The remedy is also disproportionate. Withholding a whole account removes years of work in order to address specific items. Manjul said there is 'literally no option' to contest it on the platform. Acharya described the platform as allowing 'no option for the account holder to appeal'. A user who cannot learn which agency acted, or on what ground, cannot go to court with any precision, so the lack of reasons ends up foreclosing the remedy.
What proportionate reform looks like
None of this requires abandoning fast action against genuinely harmful content. Four changes would help.
- Route speech takedowns through Section 69A. Its safeguards exist so that reasoned decisions can be reviewed.
- Disclose the issuing agency and the legal ground to the affected account holder, with a narrow, documented exception for live investigations.
- Prefer item-level restriction over account-level withholding, and require a stated justification for any account-wide action.
- Publish aggregate data on notices by agency, section and outcome, so that volume and error rates can be measured.
Platforms are not blameless either. Meta can notify users when it withholds content under a government notice, and can say clearly which provision was invoked. Doing this does not defy the order, and it is basic transparency toward users.
What to watch
The Supreme Court's eventual ruling on Section 79(3)(b) will decide whether the Sahyog route survives. Until then, cases like Acharya's will keep testing it. A regime that can silence a cartoonist without telling him who asked, or why, is not proportionate. If it holds up on appeal, it will teach platforms to over-comply and creators to self-censor, which harms both innovation and public debate.