New Delhi: The Delhi high court has directed the Union government to give copy of the original ban order as well as a post-decisional hearing to Tanul Thakur, owner and creator of the satirical website, dowrycalculator.com, which was blocked by Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) in September 2018.Thakur had challenged the censorship order before the Delhi high court.According to LiveLaw, the division bench comprising of Justice Manmohan and Justice Dinesh Kumar Sharma on May 11, while hearing advocate Vrinda Bhandari who represented Thakur, directed the committee constituted by MeitY under the Blocking Rules, 2009 to give a post-decisional hearing to the counsel for Thakur on May 23 at 3 pm.The order is significant because MeitY never publishes its censorship orders and rarely, if ever, provides a hearing, Internet Freedom Foundation (IFF) said, which is also providing legal assistance to Thakur in the high court proceedings.Also, this is the first time a MeitY censorship order, or a hearing before MeitY, will be provided to a content creator.Also read: Why the New IT Rules Beg Urgent Judicial ReviewThe Indian Express quoted the Union government’s reply in the case as saying that the website was a “crude attempt” to glorify the menace of dowry and did not carry any disclaimer about its content being satirical.However, Thakur’s counsel told the court, as reported by the news outlet, that the “satirical intent of the website is quite evident from its content and design”.As per IFF, Thakur was not given an opportunity to explain anything to MeitY before facing censorship. Added to that, MeitY even refused to provide him the original order and complaint despite filing of RTI applications.The bench has directed MeitY to furnish a copy of the committee report to the court and the petitioner within a period of four weeks from the hearing.The post-decisional hearing before MeitY’s committee is on May 23. The case will be heard next on September 14.