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A forged legal demand can reach an internet provider as an instruction to make a website disappear. Two cases disclosed this month show sharply different outcomes: government blocking directions followed fake court orders, while X told the Delhi High Court that it had not acted on bogus police complaints against digital-rights groups.
Reuters reported on November 12 that the telecoms ministry had begun an inquiry into its procedures after officials issued directions targeting 129 betting websites on the strength of fabricated high court orders. Uttar Pradesh cybercrime official Ghanshyam Yadav told the agency that police had sought ministry records and digital logs. The ministry did not respond to Reuters.
The court names and official-looking paperwork were not proof of authenticity. NDTV reported that checks of Allahabad High Court records found no registered case matching the purported order. The judge’s office also denied issuing it. Police registered a forgery and cheating case against unknown persons following the court’s complaint; responsibility remains under investigation.
In the separate X case, the primary court record shows a safeguard taking effect before enforcement. The Delhi High Court’s November 6 order records the platform’s statement that emails purportedly from Delhi Police were not genuine and that no action had been taken against the petitioners’ accounts. The petitions were dismissed as withdrawn.
Those petitioners were the Internet Freedom Foundation and Software Freedom Law Center, India. Their public statements describe challenging the requests after X notified them. SFLC said the demands targeted its documentation of online censorship, putting a service used to track restrictions itself at risk of restriction.
There is no established link between the perpetrators in the two cases, nor evidence that artificial intelligence produced the forged court orders. The distinction matters: one investigation concerns blocking directions already issued; the other concerns requests X said it did not enforce. The telecom inquiry now has to establish how fabricated authority passed its checks, not merely who sent the emails.
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