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The Kerala High Court has directed Meta to provisionally restore the Facebook account of veteran journalist N Madhavan Kutty, which was blocked following a Kerala Police request over a post on the Delhi blasts.
Justice Ziyad Rahman AA, hearing the plea on July 31, said: “Going by the documents produced before this Court, it is seen that only in respect of some of the contents the entire account itself is blocked. Therefore, I am prima facie of the view that the respondents have exceeded their powers,” the court said.
Madhavan Kutty, a former editor of the New Indian Express, had shared a Malayalam newspaper clipping on the Delhi blasts on November 11, 2025, with a comment saying: “The plan to polarise Hindu-Muslim votes in the first phase of the Bihar polls has fallen flat. This could be an attempt by vested interests.”
The Kerala government’s counsel told the court that the instruction to block the account was issued in view of certain contents uploaded by the petitioner.
The court, on examining the material and the relevant statutory provisions, held that while authorities retain the power to block content that threatens state security or public interest, blocking an entire account over objections to select posts amounted to an overreach.
As an interim measure, the court permitted Madhavan Kutty to operate his account, on condition that the specific content flagged as objectionable be taken down. It directed the competent officer under the Director General of Police to furnish Meta’s grievance officer with details and URLs of the objectionable posts, so these could be removed while the account itself continued to function.
Meta’s counsel told the court that since the account had been blocked for over six months, the underlying data may not be retrievable, citing the six-month data retention limit under Rule 3(g) of the IT (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021. The petitioner’s counsel countered that the account remained accessible outside India, meaning the data would still be intact.
The court ordered Meta to enable access to the account “forthwith”, but said any objectionable material identified by the police would have to be removed by Meta on a case-by-case basis, without disabling the account as a whole, subject to further orders.
“I feel that this is an uncommon intervention on the part of the court since the court could prima facie understand the reality. It has been four days since the order was issued but the account continues to be blocked in India,” Madhavan Kutty told TNM.
India is witnessing an escalating pattern of account blocks and takedowns, according to digital rights activists. The Internet Freedom Foundation has flagged continuing reports of posts and accounts being withheld in India on Facebook, X, and Instagram, including content involving satire and criticism of the government, with users often receiving only generic “withheld in India” notices under Section 69A of the IT Act, with little or no explanation.
In April 2026, The Hindu reported that Meta in India automatically blocks flagged content on its platforms, allowing government agencies to request and enforce takedowns almost instantly, without case-by-case review.
