The Supreme Court on Friday issued notice to former Twitter India MD Manish Maheshwari and sought a reply over plea by Uttar Pradesh government challenging the Karnataka High Court order quashing notice of personal appearance notice in a viral video case.
The Ghaziabad Police had on June 15 booked Twitter Inc, Twitter Communications India, news website The Wire, journalists Mohammed Zubair and Rana Ayyub, besides Congress leaders Salman Nizami, Maskoor Usmani, Shama Mohamed and writer Saba Naqvi.
Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, representing the Uttar Pradesh government, submitted that there was a question of law that needed examination and for the time being ignore the reason why summon was issued. Mehta added the question is about the territorial jurisdiction of the High Court.
On 17 June, the Uttar Pradesh Police had sent a legal notice to Twitter India’s Managing Director Maheshwari, for provoking communal disharmony owing to posts on the microblogging platform that were made in connection with the alleged assault on a Muslim man in the state’s Loni district, earlier in June.
A video of the violent incident had gone viral on social media and appeared to depict a hate crime against an elderly Muslim man.
On June 24, the Karnataka High Court had granted protection from arrest to Maheshwari in an FIR lodged by Loni Police in Ghaziabad.
The state government led by Solicitor General Tushar Mehta questioned the jurisdiction of the Karnataka High Court to quash the notice issued to Maheshwari by Ghaziabad police for probe.
A bench of Chief Justice N V Ramana and Justices Surya Kant and Hima Kohli issued notice to Maheshwari, saying the court would examine the matter.
Maheshwari has now been given a new US-based role “in charge of revenue strategy and operations for new markets worldwide”, a senior official of the microblogging company said on Friday, August 13.
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