NEW DELHI, Sep 2:
The Delhi High Court on Tuesday sought responses from the Centre and Meta Platforms on a petition by National Conference Lok Sabha MP Aga Syed Ruhullah Mehdi challenging the suspension of his Facebook page.
Justice Swarana Kanta Sharma issued notices to the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology and Meta Platforms, which owns Facebook.
The court listed the matter for hearing on September 30 but declined to grant interim relief to the MP at this stage, saying it would not pass an order without hearing the other side.
Meta’s counsel told the court that Mehdi’s Facebook page had been taken down following a notice from a law enforcement agency and sought time to place relevant documents before the court.
Mehdi’s petition said his Facebook page, titled ‘Ruhullah Mehdi’, was a key platform for communicating with constituents and participating in public and democratic discourse. It alleged that Meta had restricted access to the page since March without providing detailed reasons or an opportunity for a hearing.
The petition argued that a blanket restriction on an entire page without identifying specific offending content was not authorised under the applicable legal framework and violated the petitioner’s rights.