On Tuesday, Vice President and Managing Director of Facebook India, Ajit Mohan moved the Supreme Court against a notice by a committee of the Delhi Legislative Assembly. He is being summoned over Facebook's alleged role in the Delhi Riots that took place earlier this year.
The violent clash in February had killed more than 50 people and injured around 200.
Here's the story so far:
1. A representative from social media giant, Facebook, has been asked to appear before the committee to clarify allegations of "deliberate inaction on the part of (the) social media platform to apply hate speech rules".
2. Mohan had been summoned by the Delhi Assembly's Peace and Harmony Committee. We had summoned Facebook India VP and MD Ajit Mohan over its role in Delhi riots. In reply, Facebook has asked to withdraw summon as regulation of intermediaries like Facebook falls within exclusive authority of GOI," said organisation chief Raghav Chadha last week.
3. On September 20, the Delhi Legislative Assembly’s Peace and Harmony Committee said that a fresh notice was served to him seeking his presence before the Committee on 23rd September.
4. The Supreme Court will hear the plea by Mohan on Wednesday. The petition is listed before a bench comprising Justices Sanjay Kishan Kaul, Aniruddha Bose and Krishna Murari.
5. The plea has urged the apex court to set aside the summons issued on September 10 and 18, and also restrain the Delhi Legislative assembly from taking coercive action against the petitioner in furtherance to these summonses. The plea said on September 2, 2020, at the request of the Parliamentary Committee, Mohan appeared before the Parliamentary Committee and offered his views.
(With inputs from agencies)
