"No case made out": Supreme Court refuses to transfer lawyers' plea seeking transfer of all cases concerning suspension of twitter accounts

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Synopsis

In December 2019, Hegde had moved the Delhi High Court challenging the permanent suspension of his Twitter account alleging that the move was “arbitrary”, illegal as contrary to Twitter’s rules.

The Supreme Court today dismissed a special leave petition (SLP) filed by Senior Advocate Sanjay Hegde seeking transfer of all pending cases before top court, with regard to Twitter Inc and suspension of twitter accounts.

"NO case for transfer of cases pending before Delhi and Karnataka High Courts is made out.", observed a bench of Justices MR Shah and Hima Kohli.

Hegde's counsel told court that similar matters were pending across high courts which should all be heard by the Supreme Court.

"Why? Let there be a decision of the High Court", Justice Shah asked in response.

At this juncture, Senior Advocate Mukul Rohatgi, appearing for Twitter, told the division bench that Hegde had approached the Supreme Court against the Karnatak High Court's decision to dismiss his IA in the case between Twitter and the Central government.

"The Government has asked me to do somethings which are against my policies..Mr Hegde has filed an IA in the dispute between me and the Centre..", Rohatgi said. "How is Mr Hegde concerned with my dispute?", he further said.

Rohatgi further told court that the matter before Karnataka High Court was about to get over in a few days.

"It is about to get finished. Why do you want to upset it?", asked Justice Shah to which Hegde's response was, "Then milord I will not upset that proceeding."

In its order, the Top Court thus said,

"Proceedings before Karnataka High Court is more or less completed and hence, the transfer application is dismissed. Let there be one decision of a High Court, so that in the future this court has an advantage of one decision. SLP stands dismissed."

On November 5, 2019, Hegde’s Twitter account @sanjayuvacha was permanently suspended. 

In December 2019, Hegde had moved the high court challenging the permanent suspension of his account alleging that the move was “arbitrary”, illegal as contrary to Twitter’s rules.

Last year, a single judge bench of the Delhi High Court had refused to admit an early hearing application filed by Hedge in plea against suspension of his Twitter account.

Hegde had in his plea has also sought the court’s direction to the Centre to frame guidelines to ensure that online speech is not arbitrarily censored by social media websites such as the one run by Twitter.

The plea stated that section 79 (2) (c) read with Section 87 (2) (zg) of the Information Technology Act authorize the Central Government to prescribe guidelines to intermediaries.

Case Title: Sanjay R Hegde vs. Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology and ors