Kerala High Court Orders Restoration of Veteran Journalist’s Facebook Account
The Kerala High Court issued a directive on July 31 mandating Meta Platforms’ grievance officer to reinstate the Facebook account of esteemed journalist N Madhavan Kutty. This decision stems from the case N Madhavan Kutty v Union of India & ors, where Justice Ziyad Rahman AA presided. The court held that blocking an entire social media account due to certain objectionable posts is unwarranted.
The interim order was given during a hearing where Madhavan Kutty contested the blocking of his Facebook account in India, initiated by a request from the Kerala Police. The court remarked that while the authorities are within their rights to seek the removal of specific content that threatens state security or public interest, a blanket ban on the entire account oversteps their jurisdiction.
Justice Ziyad Rahman AA emphasized, “If there is any objectionable content that affects the security of the State or is against the public interest, nothing would preclude the respondent from issuing instructions to block such content. However, going by the documents produced before this Court, it is seen that only in respect of some of the contents, the entire account itself is blocked. Therefore, I am prima facie of the view that the respondents have exceeded their powers.”
Legal Arguments and Court’s Observations
Madhavan Kutty’s Facebook account, boasting about 6,000 followers, has been inaccessible in India since November 2025. Meta informed him that this restriction was enforced following a legal request from law enforcement. Kutty challenged this action, citing a lack of prior notice and absence of cited reasons, arguing it contravened the Information Technology Act and Rule 3(g) of the Information Technology (Guidelines for Intermediaries and Digital Media Ethics Code Rules), 2021 (2021 IT Rules).
The State justified the blocking, presenting content deemed objectionable to the court. Despite Meta’s submission that the six-month data retention period under Rule 3(g) had lapsed, the petitioner’s counsel highlighted that the account remains functional outside India, a claim the State did not dispute.
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Upon reviewing the evidence, the court concluded that the authorities targeted the entire account, despite concerns relating only to specific posts. Consequently, Meta was ordered to reactivate the journalist’s Facebook account. The court instructed the police to provide Meta with URLs and details of the contentious posts to ensure only those are removed or blocked. Should more objectionable posts be identified, the police must notify Meta with the relevant URLs for selective disabling, thus avoiding an overarching account block.
Next Steps and Legal Representation
The court’s interim order further required notifying the Director General of Police, Kerala, with the matter scheduled for subsequent review on September 1, 2026. Advocates Kaleeswaram Raj, Thulasi K Raj, Chinnu Maria Antony, and Tarun Philip represented the petitioner, while Central government counsel Amal Parthasaradhy appeared for the Union government.
