Delhi HC seeks Twitter's stand on plea against illegal suspension of account

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The Delhi High Court on Monday sought the stand of microblogging platform Twitter on a petition challenging the ¿out of the blue¿ illegal suspension of a user account for alleged violation of its rules.

Justice V Kameswar Rao issued notice and also sought the central government's response on the petition by Dimple Kaul who claimed that her Twitter handle had more than 2,55,000 followers and was used for posting educational content related to history, literature, politics, archaeology, Indic culture, non-violence, equality and women's rights.

The court also issued notice on another petition against suspension of the Twitter account of user Suyash Deep Rai.

Lawyer Raghav Awasthi, appearing for both the petitioners, contended that Twitter was "deleting profiles as per its own sweet will and they have no right to do so" in law and asserted that the accounts be restored during the pendency of the petitions.

Senior advocate Sajan Poovayya, representing the US-based social media platform, said that a writ petition was not maintainable against Twitter which is a private entity and sought time to file a response.

He said that granting any interim relief in the present cases would be as good as granting final relief.

Awasthi highlighted that a similar petition by a senior advocate against the suspension of his Twitter account is already pending before the court.

"We will finally hear the petitions,¿ said the court which directed that the present case be listed on the same day as the pending petition - March 30.

Kaul has submitted that she was informed by Twitter that her account, which was "followed by several eminent personalities", was suspended for violating the platform's rules against ¿ban evasion¿ even when there was no such prior incident.

She has claimed that she was not granted any opportunity of being heard and the ¿illegal action of the respondent No.2 (Twitter) has caused the petitioner to face the kind of mental and emotional trauma which cannot be expressed in words".

"Petitioner along with her research team put a lot of money and time on researching educational content and posted various threads for information and knowledge of general public. (On 20.01.2022) Out of the blue, the petitioner received an email from the respondent No.2 regarding the suspension of the Twitter account created by the petitioner,¿ the petition filed through lawyer Mukesh Sharma has said.

The petitioner has asserted that Twitter performs a ¿public function¿ and is bound by Sections 79 of the Information Technology Act, 2000 as well as the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021.

"There is no sanction for the suo-motu actions of the respondent No.2 in suspending the Twitter Account of the Petitioner under the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021 either. As a matter of fact, the same could lead to the Respondent No.2 losing its intermediary status (under the law)," the petition has argued.

It has further contended that the suspension is in violation of Articles 14, 19 and 21 of the Constitution of India as it is an impairment of the right to free speech and is arbitrary.

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