The National Commission for Protection of Child Rights has told the Delhi High Court that Twitter has refused to take down a tweet by Alt News co-founder Mohammed Zubair that was allegedly in violation of the law, the Hindustan Times reported.
Zubair posted the tweet on August 6, 2020, while responding to an abusive message from a Twitter user. He had posted the man’s display picture, which featured a little girl, and asked if she knew about his “part time job of abusing people on social media”. He had blurred the girl’s face in the image.
Two first information reports were subsequently lodged in Delhi and Raipur against Zubair following complaints by the child rights body. The FIRs invoked the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act.
The NCPCR, in an affidavit before the Delhi High Court, has said that it wrote to Twitter and the Delhi Police in July this year to ask them about follow-up action with respect to the tweet.
The child rights body said that the Delhi Police, in its response, said that it filed a kalandra or notice before the Patiala House court against Twitter for not providing information despite several reminders, according to The Indian Express.
A kalandra is a notice against a person who, according to the police, is likely to disturb public order.
The NCPCR’s affidavit further states that in August, Twitter told the panel that the image of the child was blurred or pixelated, and that the social media company had declined to take down the post after a review.
“Twitter is not cooperating with the law enforcement agencies and is not following the law of the land by not taking action against the said impugned post,” the child rights body has reportedly stated. It has sought a direction from the Delhi High Court to the social media giant to remove the post.
In September 2020, the Delhi High Court granted interim protection from arrest to Zubair. In October 2020, the Chhattisgarh High Court passed a similar order.
Zubair had last year called the complaint “absolutely frivolous”. Alt News had released a statement in his support, saying that the first information report against him was an attempt to hound him through the “misuse of legal apparatus”.
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