Delhi High Court Closes Sanjay Hegde's Plea To Restore Twitter Account And Issue Guidelines On Censorship On Social Media

The Delhi High Court has recently closed the plea filed by Senior Advocate Sanjay Hegde to restore his suspended twitter account, after it was reinstated in January last year.

Justice Tara Vitasta Ganju directed that that no action shall be taken against Hegde by Twitter, except in accordance with the law and applicable statutory rules and guidelines.

The Court disposed of the plea which also sought a direction on the Union Government to lay down guidelines to ensure that any censorship on social media is carried out strictly in accordance with the provisions of Article 19 of the Constitution.

At the time of suspension, Hegde's twitter handle @sanjayuvacha had slightly over 90,000 followers.

Citing depiction of "hateful imagery", Twitter had blocked Hegde's account in October 2019, for posting the picture of August Landmesser wherein he refused to the Nazi salute at a rally, when everybody around him was doing it.

Twitter contended that since the twitter account was reinstated, Hegde's prayer to restore the same did not survive. It was also submitted that other prayers had become infructuous since the Centre has framed Information Technology [Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021 in February 2021.

The counsel appearing for Twitter submitted that since the reliefs sought in the Petition had already been granted, keeping the plea pending would only be an academic exercise.

The counsel appearing for Hegde submitted that since there was no explanation by Twitter as to why the account was suspended and later restored, there was no assurance that the account will not be suspended again for the same reason.

The counsel appearing for the Union Government said that Twitter js required to comply with the IT Rules 2021 and other related applicable laws prior to taking any steps.

While closing the plea, the Court ordered:

“In view of the aforegoing, the Writ Petition is disposed of with the directions that no action shall be taken against the Petitioner by the Respondent No. 2, except in accordance with the law and applicable statutory rules and guidelines.”

Counsel for Petitioner: Mr. Pranjal Kishore & Ms. Madiya Mushtaq, Advocates

Counsel for Respondents: Mr. Amit Tiwari, CGSC for UOI; Mr. Ankit Parhar & Mr. Abishek Kumar, Advocates for R-2

Title: SANJAY R HEGDE v. THE MINISTRY OF ELECTRONICS AND INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY AND ANR

Citation: 2024 LiveLaw (Del) 1347

Click here to read order