Defamation suit over conceptualisation of FAU-G: Twitter India a necessary party at this stage, says Mumbai City Civil Court

A Mumbai City Civil Court dismissed the plea filed by Twitter Communications India Pvt Ltd seeking the deletion of their name from the array defendants in the suit filed by GOQii Technologies and Studio nCore pertaining to posts on social media websites with respect to conceptualising of the video game FAU-G..City Civil Judge VV Vidwans observed that in order to give effect to the orders passed during the pendency of the suit and considering the territorial jurisdiction of the court, Twitter India cannot be removed from the suit as of yet.."Whether Twitter India is an intermediary and what role it plays will have to be adjudicated at the stage of trial or any subsequent stage and not at such a preliminary stage" the Court said..Making an attempt to distance themselves from the suit, Twitter India made the following argumentsTwitter India is a separate legal entity different from Twitter Inc. (company registered in USA).Twitter India plays no role in the operation and management of the social networking platform and could not take down any content on the www.twitter.com website.Since they were not competent to provide reliefs claimed in the suit, their name as defendant ought to be removed..GOQii Technologies, Studio nCore Private Limited, as well as the CEO of GOQii Technologies, Vishal Gondal and FAU-G's brand ambassador Akshay Kumar (plaintiffs) submitted the following reasons for dismissing Twitter India’s pleaTwitter India collected revenue on behalf of the Twitter Inc and they also provided crucial services to the Indian consumers.The plaintiff is the master of the suit. However the court has discretion to decide whether a party is a necessary party or not.The suit filed by GOQii and Studio nCore seeks to restrain unknown persons from sharing social media posts debating the conceptualisation of the video game, Fearless and United Guards (FAU-G). The plainttiffs had arrayed social media websites like Facebook India, Twitter India and their parent companies as defendants..Last month, the court had granted an interim John Doe order restraining social media users from sharing defamatory social media posts which claimed that FAU-G was conceptualised by late actor Sushant Singh Rajput..Mumbai Court passes John Doe Order restraining persons from sharing posts claiming that Sushant Singh Rajput conceptualised FAU-G .The team of Counsel PD Gandhi with co-founding Partner Amit Vyas, Senior Associate Sneha Nanandkar, Associate Manager Pratik Jhaveri, and Associate Aditya Vyas of Vertices Partners appeared on behalf of GOQii and Studio nCore..Advocate Alankar Kirpekar appeared for Twitter India..[Read order here]