Twitter India MD Manish Maheshwari files caveat petition in Supreme Court

Asks to be heard if Ghaziabad police appeals Karnataka HC order

Twitter India’s Managing Director Manish Maheshwari has filed a caveat in the Supreme Court, dated June 26, asking that he be heard before any orders are passed in any appeal filed by the Ghaziabad police against the relief granted by Karnataka High Court.

The Karnataka HC had on Thursday granted interim relief to Maheshwari in a case relating to an assault video that had gone viral on the microblogging platform. The HC had also directed that no coercive action be taken against him till Tuesday.

The court had remarked that if the Ghaziabad police wished to examine the Twitter MD it could do so virtually.

An email sent to Twitter remained unanswered till the time of going to press.

The UP police had issued a notice to Maheshwari on June 17 to report at the Loni Border police station within seven days of receiving the notice to get his statement recorded. The case relates to an ongoing complaint related to tweets on the assault of an elderly Muslim man in Ghaziabad.

Twitter on June 21 restricted tweets showing the video and images from it, according to a filing with the Lumen Database by the microblogging platform.

The tweets are withheld for users in India.

Ghaziabad Police said the assault on the Muslim man was a personal dispute but was being painted as a communal incident on Twitter. Some media platforms and journalists were also named in the complaint.

Maheshwari, who is based in Bengaluru, was summoned last week for questioning and had made himself available for a video call, but the police summoned him to appear in person at the Loni Border station.

The lawyer appearing for Maheshwari cited the case of journalist Vinod Dua, where another High Court had allowed investigation through video conferencing.