Twitter India's managing director Manish Maheshwari was questioned by the Delhi Police last month over the 'Congress toolkit case', reported news agency ANI.
"A senior-level team of Delhi Police's Special Cell interrogated Twitter India managing director Manish Maheshwari at Bengaluru over the 'Congress toolkit case' matter on May 31," sources told ANI.
The Delhi Police had earlier sent a notice to Twitter, seeking an explanation from the microblogging platform to explain the rationale and share all the information on how it described the toolkit as manipulated media.
The police had also visited the Twitter India offices in Lado Sarai, Delhi and Gurgaon on May 24 with the notice over the tagging some of the posts on an alleged Congress "toolkit" against the Central government, as "manipulated media".
Earlier, the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology had written to Twitter objecting to it tagging some of the posts on an alleged Congress "toolkit" against the Central government, as "manipulated media". It asked Twitter to remove the tag as the matter is pending investigation before a law enforcement agency.
IT Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad on Wednesday slammed Twitter for deliberate defiance and failure to comply with the country's new IT rules, which has led to the US giant losing its intermediary status in India and becoming liable for users posting any unlawful content.
Twitter has allegedly not fully complied with the new rules, called Intermediary Guidelines that call for setting up grievance redressal mechanism and appointing officers to coordinate with law enforcement.
The rules became effective from May 26 and Twitter even after the expiry of the additional time has not appointed the requisite officers, leading to it losing the 'safe harbour' immunity, sources in the government told PTI.
Prasad said Twitter has "deliberately chosen the path of non-compliance." The minister also mentioned that if any foreign entity believes that it can portray itself as flag bearer of free speech in India to excuse itself from complying with the law of the land, "such attempts are misplaced".
(With inputs from ANI and PTI)
