On October 30, 2026, the Delhi High Court directed the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) and the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) to provide political cartoonist Gaurav Sarjerao Yadav with the reasons for restricting his Instagram account in India within two weeks. This deadline falls on or around November 13, 2026.
What the court ordered
- MeitY and MHA must provide the reasons for directing Meta, Instagram’s parent company, to suspend or restrict Yadav’s account.
- The ministries have two weeks to comply.
- Yadav’s liberty to pursue “appropriate remedies” has been expressly preserved, allowing him to file a fresh writ petition after receiving the reasons.
- The petition and pending applications were disposed of on these terms.
Yadav’s counsel told the court that he could not pursue legal remedies without knowing why his account had been blocked. He submitted that Yadav would be satisfied at this stage if the authorities provided the reasons for the restriction.
Who is affectedYadav has created cover cartoons for Marmik, a Marathi weekly published in Mumbai. He launched his verified Instagram account, @gauravsarjeraoart, in September 2016. The account had approximately 68,500 followers and remains accessible outside India.
Instagram displays an “Account not available in India” message, citing a legal request. The accompanying notice refers to Section 79(3)(b) of the Information Technology Act, 2000.
According to the petition, Yadav did not receive a copy of the notice or any information about the issuing authority, the posts considered unlawful, or the law allegedly violated. He was not given prior notice, an opportunity to be heard, or an explanation for blocking the entire account instead of restricting specific posts.
The petition states that this was not the first interruption. The account was previously blocked for approximately two months, from late January to late March 2026. Several individual cartoons were also restricted.
The runaround before he went to court
- October 17: Yadav emailed the authorities, seeking the withdrawal of the restriction, a complete copy of the notice, identification of the allegedly unlawful content, and an opportunity to be heard. He also asked any recipient who had not issued the notice to forward his representation to the authority that had issued it.
- October 18: He appealed through Instagram. Meta replied that it had not imposed the restriction itself and that the government had restricted the profile in his region. It advised him to approach the government.
- October 21: MeitY’s Public Grievance Officer replied that the ministry is the custodian of the IT Act, but enforcement falls under the jurisdiction of law enforcement agencies and courts. The officer directed Yadav to Instagram’s Grievance Officer and subsequently to the Grievance Appellate Committee (GAC). However, the ministry did not provide the notice or identify the authority that had issued it.
The petition argues that neither Instagram’s grievance process nor the GAC can set aside a government notice that the affected user has never seen. This, it says, is why Yadav approached the court for judicial review.
The Legal framework
Section 79(3)(b) and Sahyog: Section 79 of the IT Act conditionally protects intermediaries from liability for third-party content. Under clause (3)(b), an intermediary that fails to restrict access to unlawful material after receiving a government notification can lose this protection, creating pressure on platforms to comply with such notices. The petition characterises the restriction as a “Sahyog” blocking.
The authorisation question: The petition annexed a Sahyog list containing 35 agencies. It states that 17 of their nodal officers are listed as Superintendents or Senior Superintendents of Police, below the prescribed rank. However, the petition acknowledges that this list does not establish who issued the notice restricting Yadav’s account. The authorities would need to disclose the relevant records to establish whether an officer of the required rank exercised the power.
What the petition argued
The petition sought the quashing of the blocking notice, restoration of the account, and disclosure of relevant records. It challenged the specific restriction imposed on Yadav’s account, not the constitutional validity of Section 79(3)(b) or Rule 3(1)(d).
It invoked Articles 14, 19(1)(a), 19(1)(g), and 21 of the Constitution, which guarantee equality, freedom of expression, the right to practise a profession, and the right to life and personal liberty. Its central arguments were:
- Scope: The law refers to disabling access to “that material on that resource”. Therefore, an issue with specific content should not justify restricting an entire account.
- Proportionality: If particular posts were unlawful, restricting access to those posts alone would interfere less with Yadav’s rights.
- Future work: The government would also have to justify restricting cartoons that it had not yet examined.
- Timing: Political cartoons lose their relevance if readers cannot access them while the events they address are still unfolding. Delays in restoring access therefore compound the harm.
What remains unresolved
- Whether the ministries will comply with the court’s direction by the November 13 deadline and what reasons they will provide.
- Whether the reasons will identify the issuing authority and the specific posts in question, and whether the officer who issued the notice met the prescribed rank requirements.
- Whether Yadav will file a fresh writ petition and whether Instagram will restore access to his account in India.
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