Delhi HC issue summons, asks for written submissions from Twitter in 30 days on journo's plea for account restoration

New Delhi: The Delhi High Court on Tuesday issued summons to Twitter in a suit seeking the restoration of journalist Abhijit Iyer-Mitra's account, suspended following a tweet about bail granted to Alt News' Mohammed Zubair by the Supreme Court.

"Issue summons. Written submissions in 30 days," Justice Mini Pushkarna ordered.

In July, following the bail granted to Zubair by the apex court, Mitra, in his tweet, said the son of a sitting apex court judge had participated in debates on a news channel and its editor had later furnished the bail bond for the release of the Alt News fact checker.

The ban is in violation of the applicable IT rules

During the course of the hearing, Mitra's counsel Raghav Awasthi submitted researcher and journalist Mitra is a fairly "renowned public figure" and the ban is in violation of the applicable information technology rules and would harm his reputation.

He also pointed out that he needs to express his views to the public about the Russia-Ukraine war which is currently going on.

Merely on the basis of this tweet, Mitra's access to his Twitter followers has been curtailed, without following the procedure laid down under the IT rules, counsel argued.

Mitra's plea also sought direction to the Centre to take action against Twitter for suspending the account without following the law.

Published on: Tuesday, November 01, 2022, 04:40 PM IST