Supreme Court seeks Centre’s response on AAP plea about blocking of its Meta accounts

The Supreme Court on Friday (May 8, 2026) sought a response from the Union Government on a petition filed by the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) challenging an “illegal, arbitrary and unconstitutional” order to geo-block and suspend the Meta handles of the national party’s Gujarat unit without giving any prior reasons, hearing or notice.

A Bench headed by Chief Justice of India Surya Kant issued notice to the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology and the State of Gujarat on the petition filed by the party, which said the move was intended to “silence an Opposition party and is opposed to multi-party democracy”.

The AAP, represented by senior advocate Shadan Farasat, said the Gujarat unit’s Meta accounts @aapgujarat (on Instagram and Facebook) have functioned as official handles for political commentaries, dissemination of party policies and welfare-related information.

“They were used as legitimate platforms for political speech and democratic engagement, which fall squarely within the protection of Article 19 of the Constitution. Any action that has the effect f silencing or disproportionately restricting the voices of Opposition parties strikes at the heart of constitutional democracy and is liable to be scrutinised as a violation of the basic structure doctrine,” the AAP said.

Mr. Farasat said a direction to block an entire account/page/group would amount to a prior restraint on free speech. He said the burden was on the Union Government and the State to justify the prior restraint.

The AAP said it was not informed of any specific content alleged to be objectionable or the statutory provision which was relied upon for blocking the accounts, or the factual factors.

The blocking of the entire Meta accounts without any specific content-based identification, is disproportionate, over-broad and manifestly beyond the scope of Article 19(2) and the powers under Section 69A of the Information Technology Act. Even assuming, without admitting, that any specific content could be objectionable, the appropriate and constitutionally permissible action would have been limited to that content, not the entire official account of a national political party. The action, therefore, fails the test of proportionality,” the petition submitted.

AAP said the State machinery was consistently harassing its party workers, implicating them in petty crimes, getting them arrested and preventing them from engaging in bonafide election-related campaigning as the local and State elections were drawing near.