‘Imposter’, not Delhi Police, sent ‘notices’ to take down IFF, SLFC accounts: X tells HC

Social media platform X on Friday told the Delhi High Court that the purported notices directing it to block the accounts of digital rights groups Internet Freedom Foundation and Software Freedom Law Centre were sent by an imposter and not the Delhi Police, Bar and Bench reported.

The court was hearing a petition filed by the two digital rights groups challenging the notices.

The counsel representing X told the bench that the accounts will not be taken down.

“We have done an internal investigation and it turns out this was an imposter,” the lawyer was quoted as saying, adding that the platform had filed a complaint with the Delhi Police.

Following the platform’s submission, the court disposed of the pleas.

The digital rights groups had moved the court in the absence of responses from the police when they tried to confirm whether it had sent notices to X asking for the accounts to be removed.

Double hoax

On October 30, the digital rights groups had gone public with purported legal notices they had received in the name of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, the parent organisation of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party, asking them to stop documenting and opposing the government’s content restriction orders.

The RSS has not officially commented on the notices but its member Ratan Sharda and Kanchan Gupta, an advisor...

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