Delhi HC issues notice to Centre, Twitter on Sanjay Hegde's plea against account suspension

NEW DELHI: The Delhi High Court on Monday asked the Central government and Twitter to file a response on a petition moved by senior advocate Sanjay Hegde challenging the suspension of his social media account.

Justice Naveen Chawla sought response and listed the matter for further hearing on February 11.

The petitioner sought a direction to the social media platform to restore his twitter account which was permanently suspended on November 5, 2019.

He contended that the suspension of his twitter account is contrary to the 'Twitter Rules' and its terms of use, an illegal and arbitrary.

Hegde also sought framing of guidelines to ensure that online speech is not arbitrarily censored by social media websites such as Twitter.

The plea also raised the issue of whether large multi-national corporations, discharging a public function by serving millions of users, are amenable to constitutional scrutiny for their actions.

Hegde stated that the suspension is in violation of his right to free speech and expression, right to assembly and right to form an association under the Constitution of India.

"The Information Technology Act authorizes the Central Government to prescribe guidelines to intermediaries. However, no guidelines to ensure that legal speech is not censored have been laid down," it contended while seeking for relief.