Rahul’s Twitter account locked, firm tells court
Twitter on Monday informed the Delhi high court that it has “locked” the account of Congress leader Rahul Gandhi because his August 4 tweet with photographs of the family of a minor who was allegedly raped and murdered was in violation of the microblogging site’s policy.
Appearing for Twitter, senior advocate Sajjan Poovaya told the bench of chief justice DN Patel and justice Jyoti Singh that the post by the former Congress chief was also removed from the platform.
When an account is ‘locked’, the individual’s page can be viewed, but the person cannot access their account.
The submissions were made when the court was hearing a plea by social activist Makarand Suresh Mhadlekar who alleged that Gandhi violated the provisions of the Juvenile Justice (JJ) Act and the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (Pocso) Act by disclosing sensitive information about the victim and her family members, and by publishing a photograph of her parents on his Twitter handle on August 4.
In his plea, Mhadlekar said that Gandhi made the posts related to the crime on Twitter for political gains, and sought directions to Twitter, Delhi Police and National Commission for Protection of Child Rights to take action against the Congress leader for violating guidelines which mandated that the identity of a child victim of a crime shall not be disclosed.
Appreciating Twitter’s removal of the tweet, the bench
NEW DELHI:
said: “So nice of you… No need to explain much once you have removed it.”
However, when the petitioner’s counsel Gautam Jha disputed this stand and sought that an affidavit be filed by Twitter in this regard, the court said, “Why should they lie? The counsel for Twitter is saying that they have removed (the content). Very responsible… Immediately, even without asking from the court, they removed it. They are making the statement. There is no reason to dispute”.
“If this is the attitude, we are not issuing a notice,” an agitated bench said and posted the next hearing for September 27. It also asked the counsel of all parties to file short submissions by the next date.
On August 1, a nine-year-old Dalit girl was allegedly raped and killed by four men at a crematorium in Purani Nangal village, near Delhi Cantonment. The suspects allegedly told the family that she died of electrocution while she was fetching water from an electric water cooler installed at the crematorium. They hurriedly cremated her body after threatening her parents not to tell the police about the incident.
Police said the four men were arrested after the girl’s family alleged foul play.