The Delhi High Court on Friday declined to grant any interim relief to the organization known as Cockroach Janta Party. Instead, it directed that the plea seeking the unblocking of its X account be forwarded to a government review committee established under the Information Technology Rules. The committee has been instructed to examine the issue and render a decision before July 7.
Justice Purushaindra K Kaurav refused to provide conditional relief, which had been granted in earlier cases where accounts were restored while specific offending tweets remained blocked. The judge remarked, "The defence in those cases was that there were some tweets found to be offending. In this case, the entire activity per se perhaps was slightly offending."
Justice Kaurav permitted Abhijeet Dipke, the founder of Cockroach Janta Party, to appear virtually before the review committee. He noted that if the committee is satisfied that the blocking should be set aside, it has the legal authority to do so.
The court issued notices to the central government and X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, regarding Dipke's petition challenging the blocking of the CJP handle. The court sought their responses and scheduled the next hearing for July 7.
Senior advocate Akhil Sibal, representing Dipke, argued that the CJP account was "pure satire" and that if any tweets were objectionable, only those specific tweets should have been blocked rather than the entire account. He requested interim unblocking of the handle and urged the judge to review the blocking order. However, Justice Kaurav observed that the blocking order was not part of the court record and stated that the petitioner's request would be considered after the central government files a response to the plea.
"Let them take notice and come back to us," the judge said, adding that the petitioner could raise his grievance before the review committee.
