The Bombay High Court has refused Meta’s request to move Blink Digital’s lawsuit over its disabled accounts to a court in California.

“So far as the allegations of violation of provisions of the IT Act and the Intermediary Rules are concerned, the Courts in California cannot decide the said issues, even assuming that the contractual arrangement of jurisdiction of foreign courts and applicability of foreign law is enforceable,” Justice Sandeep Marne said in his October 27 order.

Blink Digital, a Mumbai-based digital advertising agency, sued Meta after the company disabled its four business manager accounts and about 9,000 ad accounts on August 4. Meta argued that its commercial terms require disputes with businesses to be heard in California under Californian law. The court dismissed Meta’s application and will hear Blink’s request for an interim injunction to restore the accounts on November 2.

Why did the court refuse to move the case?

  • Facebook India didn’t object: Meta’s Indian subsidiary, Facebook India Online Services, is also a defendant and hasn’t challenged the court’s jurisdiction. Meta “cannot plead on behalf of” Facebook India, the court said. Facebook India has an office in Mumbai, so the parties “cannot exclude inherent jurisdiction of this Court” through a contract, it added.
  • Indian law claims: A California court can’t decide whether Meta violated the IT Act, 2000 and the Intermediary Rules, 2021.
  • Meta’s own terms: Meta’s terms of service let consumers sue in their home country. Even under those terms, the court said, Blink’s claims over its own Facebook page and Instagram account can be heard in India.
  • No splitting the case: Courts can’t send part of a suit elsewhere and keep the rest, so the whole case stays in Bombay.

The court said its finding applies only to this application, and that jurisdiction can still be argued at trial.

What is the dispute about?

Blink runs digital ad campaigns for clients on Meta’s platforms. It wants its accounts restored and Rs 1,000 crore in damages.

Meta has alleged that Blink allowed ads for scams and sexual services. In an August 18 email, Meta’s lawyer said Blink publicly promoted ways to get around Meta’s enforcement safeguards.

“Blink’s conduct was both severe and repeated,” the email said, according to the order.

It also cited Meta’s policy that the company “may disable your account without suspending it first, such as in cases of severe or time-sensitive violations.”

Blink says it got no notice, reasons or chance to respond:

  • No prior notice: Blink says Meta disabled the accounts hours before sending a notice. It says that notice called the decision final and said Meta could not process appeals.
  • No reasons: Blink says Meta never identified the content it says broke the rules.
  • No grievance response: Blink wrote to Facebook India’s grievance officer on August 11. It says it got a reply, a week later, only through lawyers, refusing to disclose anything and calling the matter closed.
  • Pending appeal: Blink’s appeal to the government’s Grievance Appellate Committee (GAC) is still pending, though its deadline passed on October 7.

Why should Meta give reasons and a route to appeal?

When Meta disables a business’s accounts, the business can stop operating. Blink lost the ad accounts it ran for its clients, along with its own Facebook page and Instagram account.

Alternatives are limited. In 2024, the Competition Commission of India (CCI) found that Meta held a “leading position” in online display advertising in India.

The IT Rules already set out a process:

  • Notice first: Under Rule 4(8), large platforms, which the rules call significant social media intermediaries, must tell users before removing their content on their own. They must also give users a fair chance to dispute the decision.
  • Grievance officer: Under Rule 3(2), a platform’s grievance officer must acknowledge complaints within 24 hours and resolve them within seven days.
  • Appeal: Users who aren’t satisfied can appeal to the GAC, which aims to decide appeals within 30 days.

The case turns on how these rules interact. Meta relies on Rule 3(1)(c), which recognises a platform’s right to end a user’s access when the user breaks its rules or user agreement. But Blink argues that Rule 3(1)(c) doesn’t let Meta skip the notice and hearing that Rule 4(8) requires. Meta did not dispute its obligations under the rules in its letters before the suit, the court noted.

Should Meta be treated like a public utility?

Indian courts have so far said no. On October 27, Justice Amit Mahajan of the Delhi High Court held that a user can’t file a writ petition to get an Instagram account restored, because Meta doesn’t perform a public function. He told the user to file a civil suit, and directed the GAC to decide his pending appeal quickly.

“The mere provision of a platform for communication and social interaction does not, by itself, constitute a governmental function,” Justice Mahajan said.

The Madhya Pradesh High Court has dismissed an Instagram creator’s challenge to his account suspension. It upheld the rule that lets platforms remove posts that infringe copyright, LiveLaw reported on October 27. “If you are not satisfied with their services, don’t use it,” the bench remarked during the hearing.

That leaves users with civil suits and the grievance process. The Bombay ruling keeps civil suits open in India for businesses. Had the court enforced Meta’s California clause, Blink would have had to go to a US court to enforce rights it has under Indian law.

Does the GAC work?

The GAC’s own figures show a large and growing backlog:

  • Backlog: As of October 29, the GAC’s website showed 70,548 appeals received and 16,355 disposed, about 23%. Pending appeals rose from 174 in November 2025 to 49,978 by September 22, 2026, according to SFLC.in, a digital rights group, as reported by ThePrint.
  • Delays: Appeals now take 90–100 days on average, SFLC.in said, and some have been pending for over 120 days. The GAC has “significantly slowed down” since the IT Rules were amended in February 2026, said the Internet Freedom Foundation (IFF).
  • Courts stepping in: Users have had to go to court just to get their appeals decided. Instagram disabled the Delhi account of the Students’ Federation of India (SFI) in July. SFI’s appeal sat “under process” for over a month before the Delhi High Court ordered a decision within three weeks.
  • Platforms not explaining: The GAC closed one user’s appeal because Meta’s explanation lacked clarity. The Delhi High Court restored it and said the GAC “ought not to dispose of appeals solely because of lack of response/information from the intermediaries.”
  • No public orders: The Ministry of Electronics and IT (MeitY) has refused to publish GAC orders, citing complainants’ personal information, IFF found through Right to Information (RTI) requests in 2023. At the time, the GAC had passed reasoned orders in only seven of the 32 appeals it had decided.

Hoever, platforms report that they follow the GAC’s orders. WhatsApp said it complied with all 148 GAC orders it received in August. Since the orders aren’t public, though, no one outside can check what the GAC asked for, or how often it ruled for users.

When appeals are decided quickly, the process can work. One GAC appeal restored a YouTube channel within three weeks, SFLC.in told MediaNama.

How do platforms handle grievances themselves?

Grievance officers, the step before the GAC, often don’t explain their decisions or reverse them:

  • No reasons: In August, the Delhi High Court directed Meta to place on record the material behind its action against a stock market analyst’s accounts. She said she had asked Meta for the basis of its decision and never received it.
  • Few reversals: WhatsApp banned about 62 lakh Indian accounts in August. It restored 129 of the 15,106 accounts whose owners appealed, under 1%.
  • X’s appeals: Between November 26 and December 25, 2024, X decided 639 appeals against account suspensions and overturned none, according to X’s own data, MediaNama found. “There’s no response, no direct human to talk to, and no AI bot to handle grievances,” a publisher said about X.

Courts have criticised Meta’s grievance process before. Earlier in 2024, while hearing a case over a blocked Instagram page, the Delhi High Court said Meta was “far worse than a government department,” Deccan Herald reported.

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