Abhijit Iyer Mitra Moves Delhi High Court Against 'Suspension' Of Twitter Account, Wants Handle Restored

Abhijit Iyer Mitra, who is a research fellow at the Institute of Peace and Conflict Studies, has approached the Delhi High Court seeking restoration of his Twitter account and action against the micro-blogging site for "suspending" his account "without following the procedure prescribed by law". 

Mitra's access to his Twitter account was blocked in July by the social media site in connection with a tweet he had posted in context of the bail order of Alt News Co Founder Mohd Zubair. Mitra had named a journalist who "furnished bail bond" for Zubair at the time of bail.

Iyer had initially posted a tweet containing private information. Subsequently, he had posted another tweet wherein he wrote, "reposting minus the 'private info'. I'm sure twitter will find some way of protecting its resident in-house jihadist his aiders abettors"

Soon, according to the suit, Twitter issued him a show cause notice and then "unilaterally" banned his access. On his appeal, Twitter confirmed that a violation "did take place" and refused to overturn its decision.

Mitra's suit, which is listed for hearing on Tuesday before Justice Mini Pushkarna, seeks "reinstatement" of his Twitter account.

Mitra has also sought a declaration to the effect that deletion of the tweet dated July 23 by Twitter and "consequent suspension" of his account was in violation of the IT Rules, 2021.

In the tweet, Mitra had also written: "…presiding judges son on NDTV, NDTV editor furnishes bail bond of "close friend."

It is Mitra's case that after he approached Twitter's appellate authority through its app, his appeal was dismissed as a result of which he was locked out from his account subject to the deletion of the tweet in question.