The Delhi High Court on Tuesday directed the restoration of the X (formerly Twitter) account of the satirical social media collective, Cockroach Janata Party, after the Centre informed the court that it no longer objected to the account being reinstated.

Justice Swarana Kanta Sharma accepted a petition filed by the group’s founder, Abhijit Dipke, and set aside the government’s blocking order.

The court observed that the Centre’s initial apprehension that posts from the account could create confusion among students and parents during the National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test (NEET) was no longer an issue because the examination process had concluded.

Appearing for the Union government, Solicitor General Tushar Mehta submitted that the account had been blocked to prevent any potential disruption during the conduct of the medical entrance examination.

He stated that the government had no objection to the account being restored now that the examination was over.

Taking note of the Centre’s stand, the court held that the basis for the blocking order no longer survived and ordered the account to be unblocked.

The matter had earlier been referred to the Review Committee of the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology, with the court permitting Dipke to participate in the proceedings through virtual mode.

The Cockroach Janata Party emerged as a satirical online campaign following remarks made by the Chief Justice of India during a court hearing, in which he referred to certain unemployed youth engaging in online activism as “cockroaches”.

The Chief Justice subsequently clarified that his comments were directed at individuals possessing fake degrees.

The group’s social media accounts, which quickly attracted millions of followers, were later suspended.