Sahyog is ‘wolf in sheep's clothing’, X Corp tells HC

X Corp on Friday accused the Union government of using the “innocuously named” Sahyog portal as a “wolf in sheep's clothing” to issue illegal content blocking orders that bypass statutory safeguards, escalating its legal challenge against what it calls an unconstitutional censorship mechanism.

- Ayesha Arvind and Sejal Sharma

Appearing before the Karnataka high court, senior advocate KG Raghavan argued further on the company’s core content that the government was misusing Section 79(3)(b) of the Information Technology Act and Rule 3(1)(d) of the 2021 IT Rules to circumvent due process protections upheld by the Supreme Court in the landmark Shreya Singhal case.

“It is innocuously named but it is a wolf in sheep's clothing. We are a responsible business and we will abide by the law of every country we operate in. But the question is what is the correct law?” Raghavan told justice M Nagaprasanna.

“The same grounds of sovereignty, integrity, public order are used under Section 69A. Then why use Section 79 at all? This amounts to a dangerous circumvention of law,” he argued.

The hearing represented the latest round in X’s challenge to the government's directive mandating social media platforms join the Sahyog portal, a centralised system for content takedown requests that the company argues violates constitutional principles.

X's core argument centres on the interpretation of Section 79 of the IT Act, which provides “safe harbour” protection to intermediaries from legal liability for user-generated content. The platform contends this provision is a protective shield rather than an empowering mechanism for government officials to issue takedown orders.

In detailed written submissions filed on Friday, seen by HT, X introduced a “preceding order” theory, arguing that intermediaries lose safe har-