The Supreme Court on Friday, 22 October, issued notice to former Twitter India MD Manish Maheshwari over a plea filed by the Uttar Pradesh government against a decision by the Karnataka High Court to quash a notice seeking his appearance in connection with a case involving tweets about the assault of a Muslim man in Loni, news agency ANI reported.
The Karnataka High Court, on 23 July, had quashed the notice issued by the UP Police to Maheshwari in connection with the case. However, the police had been permitted to record Maheshwari's statement virtually or at his office or home, ANI reported.
The notice had been issued under Section 41A of the Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC), and the high court order had reportedly said, "The provisions of the statute cannot be permitted to become tools of harassment. The respondent has not placed even an iota of material which would prima facie show involvement of the petitioner."
The Karnataka High Court had also observed: “The invocation of Section 41A (which contains a threat of arrest) was resorted to as an arm-twisting method after Maheshwari did not respond to initial notice under Section 160 CrPC.”
WHAT HAD HAPPENED?
The Uttar Pradesh Police, on 17 June, had sent a legal notice to Twitter India's Managing Director Maheshwari, for provoking communal disharmony owing to posts on the microblogging platform that were made in connection with the alleged assault on a Muslim man in the state's Loni district, earlier in June.
A video of the violent incident had gone viral on social media, and appeared to depict a hate crime against an elderly Muslim man.
The police, however, alleged subsequently that the incident had wrongfully been given a communal colour.
Maheshwari was asked to come to the police station at Loni Border and record the statement within one week.
The Twitter official had previously indicated his availability for the police interrogation via video-conference – a plea that had been rejected by the police, who asked him to appear at the police station in person.
Maheshwari has now been given a new US-based role "in charge of revenue strategy and operations for new markets worldwide", a senior official of the microblogging company said on Friday, 13 August.
(With inputs from ANI.)
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