Amazon argued before the Karnataka High Court that it qualifies for safe-harbour protection under Section 79 of the Information Technology Act, 2000, in a case involving the alleged sale of pirated copies of the late journalist Ravi Belagere’s novel on its platform. LiveLaw reported this development first.
Some Background: Bhavana Belagere, daughter of the late journalist Ravi Belagere, who claims copyright over the book “Heli Hogu Kaarana”, filed an FIR filed at Subramanyapura Police Station. The proceedings before the Karnataka High Court arise from this FIR.
Amazon followed due diligence and thus has immunity from liability: Meesho and Flipkart are also named in the FIR but are not part of these proceedings. Advocate Sandesh J. Chouta, representing Amazon, stated that the company operates as a marketplace connecting sellers and buyers and cannot be held liable for copyright infringement by third-party sellers on its platform. He emphasized that Amazon had fulfilled due-diligence obligations regarding sellers on its platform.
Amazon says it removed listings after being notified: He cited Sections 79(2) and 79(3) of the IT Act, arguing that Amazon qualifies as an intermediary and is therefore protected from civil or criminal liability under the safe-harbour provision. Chouta also submitted that Amazon had proactively removed the listings of all 12 sellers involved in the alleged infringement as soon as it was notified. He argued that intermediaries are not required to take down listings unless ordered under Section 79(3)(b) of the IT Act.
Amazon distinguished between inventory-based e-commerce models, where the company purchases, stores, and prices products, and marketplace models, where the platform connects sellers and buyers. Chouta stated:
“Blinkit and others follow the inventory model. Flipkart, Amazon, we are just providing a platform.” – Advocate Sandesh J. Chouta (Amazon representative)
Amazon further argued that it could not be named as an accused in the absence of specific allegations that it had failed to comply with due-diligence obligations. The company also provided the Investigating Officer with details of the sellers allegedly involved in the sale of the disputed books.
He also cited the Delhi High Court’s 2020 decision in Amazon v. Amway (order PDF), where the court rejected the distinction between “active” and “passive” intermediaries for safe-harbour protection. This judgment followed the Delhi High Court’s earlier 2018 ruling in Christian Louboutin v. Darveys.com. (More about these cases below.)
When Flipkart was fined for non-BIS toys on its platform: On August 19, the Central Consumer Protection Authority (CCPA) fined Flipkart Rs. 5 lakh for facilitating the sale of toys that did not comply with Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) requirements under the Toys (Quality Control) Order, 2020, which became mandatory from January 1, 2021. You can access the court order here: [pdf]
In its order, the CCPA rejected Flipkart’s claim to Section 79 safe harbour, citing the following provisions:
- Consumer Protection Act, 2019, and
- Consumer Protection (E-Commerce) Rules, 2020,
Platform assurances may breach the intermediary ‘passive-ness’: However, in the same order, the CCPA said that these impose platform-level obligations and are independent of the IT Act’s safe-harbour framework. The order referred to tags such as ‘Flipkart Assured’, ‘Best Seller’, ‘Trending’ and ‘AD’, and said the ‘Flipkart Assured’ tag could imply that Flipkart had verified the product’s safety and quality, undermining its claim to neutral hosting.
However, it is important to note that the CCPA imposed the penalty under the Consumer Protection Act, 2019, and the E-Commerce Rules and did not rule that Section 79 is generally unavailable to e-commerce marketplaces or that the E-Commerce Rules displace/override Section 79.
Similarly, in another case, on August 4, 2026, the CCPA pointed out (order PDF) misleading listings for sweets marketed as “Shri Ram Mandir Ayodhya Prasad” on Amazon. The CCPA held that the E-Commerce Rules impose platform-level consumer-protection duties that operate alongside the Section 79 safe-harbour framework.
Why it matters: The order creates tension with the Supreme Court’s judgment in Shreya Singhal v. Union of India, which interpreted Section 79(3)(b) to mean that an intermediary’s “actual knowledge” can only be obtained through a court order or a notification by the appropriate government or its agency. The Flipkart order treats as sufficient to potentially impose liability on intermediaries where the applicable due-diligence requirements are not met.
Under the IT Act, to claim safe harbor protection, an intermediary should not:
- Initiate the transmission.
- Select the receiver of the transmission.
- Select or modify the information in the transmission.
- Fail to observe due diligence under the IT Act and other guidelines.
Additionally, while arguing that intermediary liability is assessed on a case-by-case basis, legal scholar Vasudev Devadasan stated that E-Commerce Rules acknowledge that online marketplaces like Amazon and Flipkart are eligible for safe harbor protections under the IT Act. Read his free-to-access paper on “Intermediary Liability in India” here.
How the Delhi High Court’s approach to ‘active’ intermediaries evolved (later overturned by the Amazon and Amway judgement): In November 2018, while hearing the Christian Louboutin vs Darveys.com case, the Delhi HC examined when an e-commerce platform loses safe harbour under Section 79.
In its order. The HC gave a non-exhaustive list of factors indicating active participation of a platform. They are:
- Identifying the seller and providing seller details.
- Providing transport for the seller to send products to the platform’s warehouse.
- Uploading product entries.
- Providing quality assurance after reviewing the product.
- Providing authenticity guarantees.
- Creating product listings.
- Providing or uploading product reviews.
- Enrolling members upon payment of membership fees.
- Promoting products among its customer database.
- Advertising products on the platform.
- Giving specific discounts to members.
- Assisting in placing bookings, including call centre support.
- Accepting orders on a payment gateway promoted by the platform.
- Collecting payments through registered electronic payment modes.
- Packaging products with its own branding instead of the trademark owner’s packaging.
- Transporting products to purchasers.
- Employing delivery personnel for product delivery.
- Accepting cash payments for product sales.
- Transmitting payments to sellers after retaining commission.
- Promoting affiliated companies on more favourable terms than other sellers.
- Entering into favourable arrangements with various sellers.
- Arranging for product exchanges in case of customer complaints.
- Providing or arranging for product servicing.
- Booking ad space or ad words on search engines.
- Using trademarks through meta-tags or in the website’s source code to attract traffic.
- Deep-linking to the trademark owner’s website.
The court held that if a significant number of these factors are present, a platform “could be said to cross the line from being an intermediary to an active participant” and “could be liable for infringement due to its active participation.”
“While safe-harbour provisions for intermediaries are meant to promote genuine businesses that are inactive intermediaries, the obligation to observe due diligence, coupled with intermediary guidelines that require hosted information to not violate IP rights, shows that e-commerce platforms that actively conspire, abet, aid, or induce unlawful acts on their websites cannot go unpunished.” — Delhi HC (2018)
However, in Amazon Seller Services Pvt. Ltd. v. Amway India Enterprises Pvt. Ltd., the Delhi HC overturned this order and affirmed that Section 79 does not distinguish between “active” and “passive” intermediaries for safe-harbour eligibility.
“In terms of Section 79 of the IT Act, there does not appear to be any distinction between passive and active intermediaries so far as the availability of the safe harbour provisions are concerned. In terms of Section 79, an intermediary shall not be liable for any third-party information, data or communication link made available or posted by it, as long as it complies with Sections 79 (2) or (3) of the IT Act.” – Delhi HC (2020)
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