Plea in Delhi HC for NIA probe against Twitter over anti-India tweets

A petition has been filed in the Delhi High Court seeking a probe by the National Investigation Agency (NIA) against the Twitter Communications India Pvt Ltd and their representative in India under stringent provisions of the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA), and various offences of Indian Penal Code for allegedly willfully abetting and promoting anti-India tweets in relation to Khalistan movement.

A division bench of Chief Justice DN Patel and Justice Prateek Jalan on Wednesday sent the plea, filed by one Sangeeta Sharma through advocates Desh Ratan Nigam and Awsh Singh, to another bench for hearing on September 30.

The petitioner said that Twitter, in order to create a rift in the society, deliberately promoted the prohibited content of the Sikh For Justice and "in the absence of any law to deal with offensive and hatred messages, the platforms like Twitter are knowingly promoting the messages which are against the law of the land".

Therefore, Twitter needs to explain for circulating and promoting the prohibited content from their company, the plea said. It sought an NIA inquiry for fair, proper, and speedy investigation in the matter.

The plea also sought directions to make a mechsm to check contents and advertisements which are spreading hatred amongst the communities, seditious, instigative, separatist, hate-filled, divisive, against the society at large and against the spirit of the Union of India.

"Issues writ of mandamus or any other writ, order or direction to lodge an appropriate case against Twitter Communications India Pvt Ltd and their representative in India in various provision of the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, 1967, the Indian Penal Code, and the Information Technology Act, 2000," the plea said.

It also sought to make a law, rules, and regulation as per which an action can be initiated against the breaking India messages under the garb of Article 19 of the Constitution of India against the Twitter India and their representatives in India for willfully abetting and promoting Anti India tweets and penalize them and their relevant authorities according to law of the land.

The petition sought directions to the respondent to ensure the development of Indian social media platforms and also to have these apps use servers based in India. It also sought to ensure that the revenue generated from India by the social media platform twitter should be taxed in India and come within Indian Taxation laws.

"Because Twitter assumes that as a platform they are not governed by the Indian constitution and can operate with impunity and therefore, a law is required to deal with such kind of hatred and divisive messages," the plea said.

"Twitter and social media compes are profit-making compes and expecting them to have safeguards for making social media safe and secure is important. The logic and algorithms that twitter usage should be shared and vetted by Indian government authorities or competent authority for screening anti-India tweets. The source code needs to be shared with the government," it added.

( With inputs from ANI )