Platform rules: more stakeholders in takedowns

India is moving to give users and social media companies a formal seat in some content-blocking hearings, even as the Supreme Court is still examining key parts of the country’s data-protection regime. (economictimes.indiatimes.com) (hindustantimes.com) The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology has proposed to the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting that users and intermediaries be included in Inter-Departmental Committee hearings on blocking orders under Section 69A of the Information Technology Act, officials told The Economic Times. (economictimes.indiatimes.com) The current blocking system runs under the 2009 Blocking Rules, issued on October 27, 2009, and lets the Designated Officer act on requests from government nodal officers or courts. Those rules also say any person may send a complaint to a nodal officer asking for content to be blocked. (meity.gov.in) The proposal follows a March 13, 2026 hearing in which the government, X, and at least one user were heard over Section 69A blocking requests covering at least 16 accounts. On March 18, 2026, the ministry then directed X to block 12 accounts within one hour, according to court filings reported by The Indian Express. (indianexpress.com) X told the ministry that account-level blocking “excessively and disproportionately” restricted users’ rights and argued that most of the flagged material did not meet Section 69A’s legal grounds. The company also said it believed the affected account holders had not been given a hearing. (indianexpress.com) At the same time, the Supreme Court has kept India’s data-governance framework in play. On March 13, 2026, a bench of Chief Justice Surya Kant and Justice Joymalya Bagchi issued notice to the Centre on a plea challenging a provision of the Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023, and tagged it with similar pending cases. (hindustantimes.com) That plea, filed by Anjali Bhardwaj and Amrita Johri, asked the court to shield information obtained under the Right to Information Act, 2005 from the 2023 data law and to strike down part of Section 44 for curbing access to information. A separate petition by journalist Geeta Seshu and the Software Freedom Law Center also prompted notice from the court on March 12, 2026. (hindustantimes.com) (thehindu.com) The Supreme Court said the question of what counts as “public data” and “personal data” had arisen after the Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023 and the Digital Personal Data Protection Rules, 2025 came into operation. The rules were notified on November 14, 2025, and the government also moved that day to establish the Data Protection Board of India. (thehindu.com) (meity.gov.in) The ministry is also separately rewriting platform rules. On March 30, 2026, it invited comments on draft amendments to the Information Technology Rules, 2021, including a new Rule 3(4) that would make ministry-issued clarifications, advisories, directions and codes of practice part of intermediary due diligence, with comments due by April 14, 2026. (meity.gov.in) Taken together, the two tracks leave India’s internet rules in flux: the government is proposing a more formal hearing process for takedowns while the Supreme Court decides how far the new privacy law can reach into access-to-information disputes. (economictimes.indiatimes.com) (thehindu.com)