The Delhi High Court on Friday observed that the existing safe harbor provisions do not give immunity to X Corporation for refusing to join the Centre’s cooperation portal, which aims to create a unified framework to fight cybercrime and share information on human trafficking, child trafficking, and drug-related crimes.
X cannot refer to safe harbor for non-cooperation: High CourtSafe harbor provisions under Section 79 of the Information Technology Act, 2000, protect online intermediaries such as social media platforms from legal liability for user-generated content posted on their platforms. This protection applies only if they follow due diligence and promptly remove illegal content after receiving a court or government order or after gaining actual knowledge of such illegal material.
Under Article 79(3)(b), intermediaries lose this immunity if they fail to remove or disable access to illegal content after receiving “actual knowledge” or notification from a court or public authority. This provision requires intermediaries to terminate access to such content within 36 hours of receiving a court order or government direction declaring such content to be obscene, prohibited or otherwise unlawful.
A bench of Justices Pratibha M Singh and Amit Sharma observed while hearing the plea seeking to trace the missing boy. In September 2024, the court expanded the scope of the case due to delays by social media intermediaries in sharing information with law enforcement agencies. A notice was issued seeking their SOP. In April last year, the Center had said that 65 intermediaries had joined the cooperation portal, excluding X, which later sought exemption from the suit.
The court emphasized that investigating agencies cannot be expected to interact with multiple social media platforms individually, especially in an emergency, and it would be impractical for investigating officers from different police stations across the country to access 30-40 separate platforms to obtain information. It also noted that several countries, including the US and the UK, have centralized portals for sharing such data, stressing the need for a similar streamlined system.
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“In the opinion of this court the existing safe harbor provisions do not protect you to the extent that you can deny and say that we cannot come on board in case of offence. …. That is our feeling …,” the court told X’s lawyer Akhil Sibal.
It added, “In case of conviction by the court, we are very clear that it is impossible for an investigating agency to go to portals of different platforms to get information, especially if it is urgent. You can imagine, every IO of every police station in the country cannot go to 30-40 platforms to get information. You look at it in any country in the world, it is impossible. UK, everyone has a centralized prime portal where all the data has to be there no doubt…”
X’s counsel argued that the present petition, which is to trace a missing boy, has a limited scope and therefore issues relating to onboarding intermediaries on the cooperation portal could not be examined therein. ”
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He also referred to the earlier stand of the Indian Cyber Crime Coordination Center (I4C), which described the onboarding of the help portal as a mere “administrative measure” and an optional process before the Karnataka High Court.
Sibal also submitted that I4C did not indicate any difficulty in obtaining or requesting data through its resource portal, but only said that such requests were occasionally objected to by the platforms. He added that the resource portal was functioning effectively and noted that similar issues were pending before various High Courts, including two appeals challenging the September 24, 2025 judgment of the Karnataka High Court and two petitions before the Bombay High Court questioning the validity of the Centre’s support portal. To be sure, the Karnataka High Court in September upheld the Centre’s authority to issue orders to block content through the help portal.
The court, however, adjourned the matter after counsel for the center sought an adjournment, and the court thus gave time to the center to file X’s discharge petition.
To be sure, the High Court in August last year had also remarked that X’s reluctance to join the Centre’s cooperation portal, even to share information on human trafficking, child trafficking, drug-related crimes and security with law enforcement agencies, could pose a “problem”.
