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Synopsis

Justice Subramonium Prasad of the Delhi High Court on Tuesday "recused" from hearing a batch of pleas challenging suspension of social media accounts of several users.

The judge mentioned that petitioner counsel, Senior Advocate Sanjay Hegde is a "good friend" of his and directed the pleas be listed before some other bench, subject to the instructions of the Chief Justice.

The court fixed the matter for further hearing before another judge on August 7.

Twitter accounts @Wokeflix, @Bharadwajspeaks and others have challenged the suspension of their user handles by Twitter Inc before the high court and vide their written submissions, they contended that the same had been done arbitrarily and that the political persuasion of these handles was what led to the same. 

"It is also clear that all the Petitioner before this Hon’ble Court belong to one particular political persuasion and the same have been targeted. It is further submitted that the instances of discrimination are also quite numerous," the petitioners stated.

It has been contended that while suspending the accounts, Twitter did not follow due process in terms of the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021 which it is bound by and that, "if the same is not done then there is a possibility that Twitter might play a partisan role apart from other tech giants like Facebook/ Instagram in the General Elections of 2024".

"......unless the tech giants are not injuncted against not following the law of the land, the consequences for our democracy would be quite severe. As students of Indian history, the Petitioner would like to underscore that even the East India Company entered the country as a trading corporation in the 17th century before it went onto attain paramountcy in Indian affairs by the 19th", the petitioners stated.

The petitioners further contended that the Hindu Community cannot be treated as children of a "lesser God", especially in a country where 80 per cent of the population is Hindu.

"That it is finally submitted that the Petitioners believe in an untrammelled right to free speech which is guaranteed under Article 19(1)(a) of the Constitution of India to all citizens except in cases where it is promoting violence. It is however submitted that the said right has to be made available to all communities and one community cannot be treated with kid gloves at the expense of all other communities. In other words, as mentioned earlier, in a country where 80 percent of the population is Hindu, the aforesaid community cannot be treated as children of a Lesser God," one of the plea said.

On March 8, 2022  the Delhi High Court bench of Justice V Kameswar Rao of the Delhi High Court had issued notice on the petition(s) challenging the allegedly arbitrary suspension of their twitter accounts.

"It is high time that you wake up", remarked Justice Yashwant Varma while replying to the argument made by Twitter on the maintainability of the writ petitions filed by the users.

In January 2022, the high court had sought response from Twitter and Centre against the suspension of accounts with the well known handle " @Bharadwajspeaks" and user handle "@Suyashdeep". 

While arguing before the Delhi High Court in pleas filed by users like Wokeflix, @Bharadwajspeaks and others challenging the suspension of their user handles by Twitter Inc, the Central Government had submitted that Twitter cannot be all high and mighty.

Case Title: Wokeflix through Megha Choubey v. Union Of India & Ors.