India, July 2 -- India's India's Solicitor General Tushar Mehta pushed back strongly against a lawyer representing Elon Musk's social media platform X after he told a court on Tuesday that nearly any government official - "every 'Tom, Dick, and Harry'" - has been given the authority to issue content takedown orders.

The controversial remark was made by X's lawyer KG Raghavan, during a hearing in the Karnataka high court.

The hearing was over X's legal challenge to what it describes as a government "censorship portal" - a platform that allows officials to issue content removal directives.

An Indian Railways notice demanded the removal of a video showing a car being driven on railway tracks - content that Raghavan described as "news," th...