The chief editor of NoCap, a Malayalam digital news outlet, asked the Kerala High Court to direct relevant authorities to produce and publish the orders that led to the blocking of NoCap’s Facebook page in India. The page was blocked in India on September 28, 2026. MediaNama accessed the petition, filed on October 23 as WP(C) 36632/2026. The petition invokes Section 79(3)(b) of the Information Technology Act to argue that an order restricting content must be communicated to the affected user.
All that NoCap had been told was that it happened because of “a notice from the Government of India/Law Enforcement”. No specific posts were identified, no issuing authority was named, and no reason was provided. Earlier this month, the Punjab and Haryana High Court held that users must receive copies of government intimations sent to platforms, MediaNama reported.
What actually happened to NoCap’s page?
On September 28, NoCap received an in-app notification, which the petition reproduces:
“We restricted access to your content in India pursuant to a notice from The Government of India/Law Enforcement under Section 79(3) (b) of the Information Technology Act, 2000. You can learn more about our approach to content restrictions based on local law in our Transparency Center… You may reach out to The Government of India / Law Enforcement to find out more information about this notice and take appropriate legal action (as you may deem fit).”
Anyone visiting the site now sees the message “Account not available in India. This is because we complied with a legal request to restrict this content.” MediaNama captured a screenshot of this message on October 26 and reproduced it below:
NoCap is run by Hyder Ali and a team of 10 journalists, camerapersons and designers. NoCap had 1,62,000 Facebook followers, 87,400 followers on Instagram, and 1,23,000 subscribers on YouTube before the block happened, the petition notes. The petition says the restriction sharply reduced NoCap’s reach and revenue:
- Views: Between March 1 and October 20, the page had around 18,20,16,056 views with an average of 6,00,000 per day. Daily views fell to 4,538 on October 4. The petitioner “believes that the views still being recorded are from outside India where the page is available.”
- Revenue: The outlet reported a substantial decline in revenue, with earnings between September 28 and October 20 falling by almost 91% and by approximately 94.5%, subject to verification of the comparison periods. Since they don’t opt for any outside investment or advertising deals, their Facebook monetisation was the main source of income, the petition says.
Because NoCap had not received a copy of the order, NoCap said it “is unable to ascertain which, if any, of these posts formed the basis of the Impugned Order”. The petition was referring to posts published shortly before the restriction.
What does NoCap want?
The petition asks the court to:
- Produce and publish the order that blocked the page
- Set it aside, along with the records leading to it
- Restore NoCap’s Facebook page
- Declare that orders under Section 79(3)(b), read with Rule 3(1)(d) of the IT Rules, 2021, “have to be communicated to the user whose content is removed/disabled by the order”
What does the petition argue?
The petition relies primarily on the IT Rules, with Rule 3(1)(d), as amended on February 10, 2026, mentioned for the requirement of a platform to act within three hours of a reasoned intimation. The petition argues that the user received none of this information, including the provision invoked, the unlawful act and the exact URL, as mandated by the rules:
“There is also no express provision requiring the affected user to be informed, as the intermediary is informed under Rule 3(1)(d)(ii)(II), of the legal basis and statutory provision invoked, the nature of the alleged unlawful act, and the specific Uniform Resource Locator…”
The petition makes several other arguments:
- The Sahyog portal: The petition says that the Sahyog portal “facilitates restrictions on online speech without adequate disclosure of the legal basis, reasons, and material underlying such action”. Section 79(3)(b), a safe harbour provision, “cannot be treated as an independent source of blocking power“, it argues.
- No secrecy rule applies: They argue that Section 79(3)(b) does not have the same confidentiality clause which the 2009 Blocking Rules extend to Section 69A blocking orders.
- A page, not a post: The petition cites the Supreme Court’s proportionality test in Anuradha Bhasin v. Union of India to argue that it is disproportionate to block the whole page rather than any specific post.
- Facebook’s role in news distribution: They draw on the Bennett Coleman v. Union of India case to say that their Facebook page performs “a function analogous to the pages and circulation networks of a newspaper”.
How have other High Courts dealt with this?
On October 5, the Punjab and Haryana High Court set aside a Yamuna Nagar police intimation that had led to restrictions on Haryana 24 News Network’s Facebook page. LiveLaw reported that one of the reasons for this was that the officer issuing it was below the rank permitted to do so.
The court held that “a copy of the intimation must be furnished to the user when it is sent to the intermediary”, according to the extract the NoCap petition quotes.
The petition also cites an interim order of the Madras High Court in P. Chockalingam v. Additional Chief Secretary, concerning a notice seeking to block multiple URLs without individual reasons for each. “When the State restricts speech, it must speak through reasons,” that order says. It also cited two other Delhi High Court cases as precedents since the blocking orders had surfaced after the affected parties went to court.
What MediaNama has asked
To Meta:
- Which authority sent the notice that led to NoCap’s page being restricted in India, and whether Meta will share the notice with the page’s owner
- Whether the notice identified specific posts, and why the entire page was restricted
To Kerala Police:
- Whether the Kerala Police issued an intimation concerning NoCap’s Facebook page, and which officer issued it
- Whether the intimation has been reviewed, as Rule 3(1)(d) of the IT Rules requires every month
MediaNama will update this report when the authorities respond.
Also read:
- Satish Acharya’s Instagram withheld under Section 79, a route already before the Supreme Court
- Inside Petition: Journalists challenge blocking of Instagram reel related to AP’s AI data center
The post NoCap asks Kerala High Court to make authorities produce the order behind its Facebook block appeared first on MEDIANAMA.