MUMBAI: The government on Friday told the Supreme Court that it was withdrawing its notification proposing to create a social media hub. Some had alleged that this could become a tool to monitor the online activities of the citizens.

A bench, comprising justices AM Khanwilkar and DY Chandrachud and headed by chief justice of India Dipak Misra, considered the submission of attorney general KK Venugopal that the notification was being withdrawn, and disposed off petitions challenging it.

Venugopal told the bench, that the social media policy would be reviewed completely by the government. The Bench was hearing a petition filed by Trinamool Congress MLA Mahua Moitra, who alleged that the government’s social media hub policy was to be used as a tool to monitor social media activities of citizens and sought the quashing of the same.

The apex court, which agreed to hear the plea, asked the government whether its move to create such a hub was to tap people’s WhatsApp messages, and observed that it would be like creating a ‘surveillance state’.