PIL against Twitter in Bombay HC for promoting pro-Khalistan tweets
New Delhi, July 5 (IANS) A public interest litigation (PIL) has been filed against Twitter India Pvt. Ltd. and others by petitioner, Gopal Jhaveri before the High Court at Bombay with the prayer to direct the National Investigation Agency (NIA) to take action against Twitter under various penal provisions of the law.
These include Section 39 the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, 1967; section 107, 121 A, 124A, 153A, 153 B, 34 of the Indian Penal Code, section 66f of the Information Technology Act, 2000.
The petitioner also demanded for the regulation of social media platforms to tackle various anti-national and unethical activities on Twitter.
According to the petition, Twitter accepted blood money to promote Khalistan supporting tweets and is still promoting it knowingly. It is a well known fact that the Khalistan is a banned terror organisation even though they have blindly supported terror organisations to promote anti national agenda and therefore the authorized representative and all the persons involve in this activity shall be punished by Indian judiciary to set an example to those who are still having a goal to divide India and activiely supporting banned terror organisations.
The Chief Justice of High Court at Bombay in his order dated June 5, 2020 directed Twitter and their advocate to file their reply within three weeks, the reply is still pending.
The petition argues that the enquiry may be initiated by the National Investigation Agency, for fair, proper and speedy investigation as many of the users who promote massages in related to #Khalistan are from outside India and therefore shall be investigated by the National Investigation Agency.
It seeks an order or direction against the respondents thereby commanding them to make a mechanism to check contents and advertisements which are spreading hatred amongst the communities, seditious, instigative, separatist, hate filled, divisive, against the society at large and against the spirit of Union of India.
The petitioner came to know that Member of Parliament Anant Kumar Hegde made a statement about the support of Twitter in anti national agenda, the Petitioner further says that after enquiring about the issues, the Petitioner came to know that the Twitter server were used for the promotion of #Khalistan, still there are many users who are having there user name as Khalistan or similar to Khalistan just to promote ati national activity, the screen snap shot of various users who are promoting this anti National agenda is attache.
Another tweet done by Twitter user with name mentioned as Gurpatwant Singh Pannun through his Twitter handle @GPannun.
In the media reports, Anant Kumar Hegde writes to PMO against Twitter Inc.’s ‘anti-national acts’ The Lok Sabha member also suggested developing an Indian version of Twitter to prevent ‘digital colonisation’ of the country.
On April 28, 2020, Hegde has written to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, raising concerns about Twitter alleged interference in free-speech by targeting nationalistic accounts. Calling the micro-blogging site “detrimental to India’s strategic interest and democratic fabric of society,” Hegde presented six points to be considered by the PMO while investigating Twitter.
These points include selective targeting of nationalistic Twitter accounts and pro-Indian handles; suspension of handles belonging to elected representatives without notice; promotion of slanderous handles “spewing poison” about the Prime Minister, Home Minister and CMs via paid ads; no action against handles spreading discontent, fake news and objectionable content against any religion or the country. He also pointed out that Twitter didn’t receive pro-Khalistan tweets as harshly as the nationalistic ones.
–IANS
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