Access the transcript of court proceedings here.
At the first hearing in Gamban’s petition against the Ministry of Electronics and IT’s (MeitY’s) Section 69A blocking order, Justice Swarana Kanta Sharma of the Delhi High Court declined to fast-track the matter despite the anti-gambling-addiction app’s website having been inaccessible in India for more than three years and listed the matter for September 30, 2026 as MeitY sought time to submit their response after instructions.
Already three years have passed since the block, whats the urgency now? argues Delhi HC: When Gamban’s counsel argued that three years had passed without any decision, and asked the court to place that on record the judge stated that it is not a submission and said in Hindi that ‘three years had indeed gone by, so what was the urgency today.’ Delhi HC listed the case for September 30, 2026, rejecting Gamban’s request for an earlier hearing in August.
HC asks MeitY to conduct a personal meeting with Gamban to explain the reasoning behind the blocking order: Justice Sharma asked MeitY to commit to a timeline for a their submission and suggested the Ministry give Gamban a personal hearing. “I’m not saying that you do this or you do that. Please, just decide. Let people do whatever they want to. They are always in confusion about ho kya raha hai (what is happening)”, said Justice Sharma. MeitY’s counsel responded saying that they’ll come back to Delhi HC with instructions tomorrow (July 21).
MeitY cites May 2025 response that said concerned nodal agency would ‘revert shortly:’ On the delay, MeitY’s counsel pushed back on Gamban’s narrative, telling the court that Gamban itself had taken over a year to respond to the Ministry’s communications and was now “pressing for urgency.” She referred to a letter in which MeitY had asked Gamban to explain why it should have access to certain financial disclosures, and said Gamban took a year to reply. She cited a May 5, 2025 email to Gamban stating that its request for unblocking had been “forwarded to the Concerned Nodal Agency for further examination” and that the Ministry would revert “shortly.”
Pressed repeatedly by the court to name a decision timeline, MeitY’s counsel said she could not commit to one without instructions and asked to return the next day with a response.
During the proceedings the MeitY’s counsel also mentioned that no final decision on unblocking had yet been taken yet.
Gamban hasn’t listed intermediaries as parties to the case, argues MeitY: Appearing on behalf of MeitY, the Ministry’s counsel first raised a preliminary objection: Gamban’s petition had not impleaded the necessary parties, since it named only the Union of India as respondent and not the intermediaries (like internet service providers) which are actually blocking the platform. She said MeitY could only issue directions to these intermediaries but did not itself…
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