The Delhi High Court on Tuesday issued a notice to Twitter on a plea seeking registration of a first information report against Congress MP Rahul Gandhi for revealing the identity of a Dalit minor girl, who was raped and murdered in the national capital, PTI reported.

Gandhi had posted a photo with the girl’s parents on the social media platform. Twitter had removed the post and “temporarily locked” the Congress leader’s account for a week in August.

At Tuesday’s hearing, Senior Advocate Sajan Poovayya told the court about the action taken against Gandhi for violating the platform’s policy. However, a bench of Chief Justice DN Patel and Justice Jyoti Singh asked Twitter to file a written response on the matter by November 30, Live Law reported.

Advertisement

The judges refused to issue notices to Gandhi, the National Commission for Protection of Child Rights and the Delhi Police Commissioner, who had been included in the plea as respondents to the matter.

Advocate Gautam Jha, appearing for the petitioner, submitted that Gandhi’s tweet had violated the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act and the Supreme Court guidelines on not revealing identity of rape complainants.

The plea alleged that Gandhi posted the photo in an attempt to take “political mileage” of the assault, Live Law reported.

The rape and murder case

The nine-year-old Dalit girl was allegedly raped, murdered and forcibly cremated on August 1 at a crematorium in Delhi’s Cantonment area.

Advertisement

Four persons – Shyam, Kuldeep Singh, Laxmi Narayan and Salim Ahmed – were arrested on August 2. While Shyam is a priest at the crematorium where the minor was assaulted, the other three men are acquaintances of the girl’s mother.

In a chargesheet submitted to Delhi’s Patiala House court, the police have said that the girl died due to suffocation during the sexual assault. The police added that Shyam, the main accused, had sexually assaulted the minor girl in the past also.