The Union government told the Delhi High Court on Friday (April 10, 2026) that X’s failure to remove “highly derogatory” tweets posted a decade ago by journalist Rana Ayyub, despite court orders and Delhi police notices, amounts to non-compliance with the Information Technology Rules and may lead to loss of safe harbour protection.

In a note submitted to Justice Purushaindra Kumar Kaurav, the Centre said that the Delhi police had, in September and December last year, requested X (formerly Twitter) to take down the tweets posted between 2013 and 2017, but the platform failed to act.