The Union Ministry of Home Affairs has issued 91 takedown notices to social media platform X since March 2024 for over 1,100 URLs allegedly violating legal provisions, The Indian Express reported on Tuesday.
More than half of these URLs, or 566, were flagged for “disturbing public order”, notices reviewed by the newspaper showed. This was followed by 124 for targeting political and public figures.
The newspaper reviewed a compilation of these notices issued between March 20, 2024 and November 7, 2025, which was filed in an affidavit by the Ministry of Home Affairs before the Delhi High Court in December.
These notices were issued to X under Section 79(3)(b) of the Information Technology Act via the ministry’s Indian Cyber Crime Coordination Centre.
This provision states that online intermediaries, such as social media platforms, can lose their safe harbour status if they fail to remove or disable access to content that is used to commit an “unlawful act” despite being told to do so by government authorities.
Removing this status would mean that the platforms would be liable for the content in question.
As per the notices examined by The Indian Express across the 20-month span, 58 takedown notices were issued to X in 2024, including 24 for provisions related to violating public tranquillity and promoting enmity.
Three other notice flagged content deemed to threaten national integrity and sovereignty, the newspaper reported.
Fourteen notices were issued during the period for alleged criminal activity, including promoting betting apps, impersonating official handles with potential to cause financial fraud and circulating child sexual abuse material.
As per the newspaper, there was also an increase in notices around the Lok Sabha elections in 2024, and Operation Sindoor in May.
At least 761 URLs were flagged in takedown notices to X during the elections in April and May 2024. Of these, nine notices flagging 198 URLs referred to violations of the Representation of the People Act.
Operation Sindoor were strikes carried out by the Indian military on what it claimed were terrorist camps in Pakistan and Pakistan-occupied Kashmir as tensions between New Delhi and Islamabad escalated on May 7.
The strikes were in response to the Pahalgam terror attack, which killed 26 persons on April 22.
Several notices were issued for posts on X amid the tensions, including five seeking the takedown or removal of 56 URLs for content that posed a threat to India’s “integrity, sovereignty and security”, The Indian Express reported.
After Operation Sindoor in May, two notices were also issued seeking the removal of three URLs for posting content allegedly “critical of the Indian Army”.
This comes as X is challenging the legitimacy of Sahyog, a portal set up by the Indian Cyber Crime Coordination Centre to “streamline” orders to take down content, in court. This portal also uses Section 79(3)(b) of the Information Technology to issue takedown notices.
X has described this portal as a “censorship portal”, and claimed that the Information Technology Act does not contain any provision to create such a portal, or to require social platforms to appoint a nodal officer for it.
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