The Bombay High Court on Tuesday asked the state government whether Sunaina Holey’s tweet in April aims at creating communal enmity.
The state told the court that the 38-year-old and her followers had tried to use the social media platform to malign a segment of society during the lockdown.
A division bench of Justice SS Shinde and MS Karnik was hearing the petition of Holey to quash the FIR registered against her by the Mumbai and Palghar police for her comments on the Bandra migrants gathering. She had made comments against the Chief Minister, his son and cabinet minister Aditya Thackeray and the state government. Holey was booked for making statements conducive to public mischief and under the IT Act.
Appearing for the state, senior advocate Manoj Mohite told the bench that Holey’s tweets had a general tendency to vilify a particular community and mentioned her tweet made against the Tablighi Jamaatis.
“Tablighis were vilified and hounded on social media stating these are the people who spread the virus. Many of them were discharged by Delhi High Court and Aurangabad bench of the Bombay High Court with scathing remarks. She is just one of the followers of the petitioner. This is how the whole thing is twisted time and again to make it a communal thing. It shows a general tendency,” Mohite said.
He justified the FIR filed by the police and said that media of the internet has to be treated differently from the other media. “It is not like two people shouting on the streets. Medium of the internet has a global reach,” he said.
The bench said it would have to examine whether the objectionable tweet created hatred between communities. The matter will continue to be heard on 4 January.
