Delhi High Court issues summons on suit by Abhijit Iyer Mitra seeking restoration of his Twitter account

The Delhi High Court on Tuesday issued summons to Twitter on journalist and scholar Abhijit Iyer Mitra's suit seeking restoration of his Twitter account which was suspended after he put out a tweet about the Supreme Court granting bail to Alt News co-founder Mohammed Zubair [Abhijit Iyer Mitra v Twitter Communications India Pvt Ltd and Anr]..Single-judge Justice Mini Pushkarna directed Twitter to file its response on the suit and listed the matter for further consideration before the joint-registrar. .After Zubair was granted bail by the Supreme Court in July, Mitra had put out a tweet stating that the son of a sitting judge of the apex court had participated in debates on news channel NDTV and the news channel's editor had later furnished the bail bond for release of Zubair.The tweet also contained some personal information like phone numbers, addresses of the parties etc.This was followed by another tweet wherein he removed the personal information from the earlier post but added that he was sure that Twitter will find some way of protecting its “resident in-house jihadist his aiders abettors.”His account was subsequently suspended..In his plea filed through advocates Mukesh Sharma, Abhay Chitrvanshi and Kunal Tiwari, Mitra stated that it came to his knowledge that NDTV journalist Sreenivasan Jain had stood surety for Zubair in his bail bond.Mitra submitted that it was in furtherance of his right to free speech and an equally important right of the public to receive and know fair and truthful information, that he put out a tweet on July 23 attaching the affidavit and bail bond showing Jain as surety.The Court was told that Twitter suspended his account without any explanation or show cause notice making it completely inaccessible for Mitra to engage with his 1.5 lakh followers.Though he approached Twitter’s appellate authority against this, his appeal was dismissed.“Not only this, but the Defendant No.1 leaving no stone unturned further pasted a ‘Note’ below such condition to the effect that the Deletion of such tweet by the Plaintiff will amount to his acceptance of the violation of twitter guidelines. In other words, in one breath, the Plaintiff was forced to delete the tweet and pronounced immediately guilty by forced expulsion from the Twitter contrary to the procedure prescribed.”.Advocates Raghav Awasthi and Mukesh Sharma appeared for Mitra today and told the court that he is a very well respected defence analyst who participates in various TV debates and a renowned public figure. I (Mitra) had posted something where I did not disclose any personal information, yet my access has been curtailed without following the procedure as laid down in IT Rules, Awasthi said. .However, Senior Advocate Sajan Poovayya, appearing for Twitter, argued that the present suit was filed three months after suspension of account.He added that the account has not been banned but has been put in read only mode and if the tweet in question is deleted, the account will be restored. .Awasthi then said that he will take instruction on the aspect. He also said that he is seeking a shorter date in the matter because there is a war going on in Ukraine and Mitra needs to express his views about the same to public. The Court, however said that if that was the case, he can delete his tweet and his account will be restored.