The Delhi High Court on Friday adjourned the hearing till August 27 on the pleas by WhatsApp and Facebook challenging the federal government’s Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021, which would require the messaging services to “trace” the origin of particular messages sent on the service.

A division bench of Chief Justice DN Patel and Justice Jyoti Singh adjourned the matter after Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, appearing for the federal government, sought adjournment.

WhatsApp has earlier moved the Delhi High Court challenging the IT Rules 2021, which would require the messaging services to “trace” the origin of particular messages sent on the service.

In a statement, WhatsApp said, “Requiring messaging apps to ‘trace’ chats is the equivalent of asking us to keep a fingerprint of every single message sent on WhatsApp, which would break the end-to-end encryption and fundamentally undermines people’s Right to Privacy”.

WhatsApp’s spokesperson said, “We have consistently joined civil society and experts around the world in opposing requirements that would violate the privacy of our users.

In the meantime, we will continue to engage with the Government of India on practical solutions aimed at keeping people safe, including responding to valid legal requests for the information available to us.”

The Indian government framed the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code), Rules 2021 in February 2021 putting in place a set of guidelines for SM and OTT platforms, and publishers of digital news.