The Rajasthan High Court on Wednesday refused to quash a First Information Report filed against Twitter Chief Executive Officer Jack Dorsey for allegedly hurting the “religious sentiments” of the Brahmin community, PTI reported. However, the court stayed Dorsey’s arrest.
Dorsey had filed a petition through senior counsels Mahesh Jethmalani and Sandeep Kapur seeking that the case against him be quashed. The case was filed on December 4 after a photo on social media showed Dorsey posing with a poster that read “Smash Brahminical Patriarchy”. The photo was taken during Dorsey’s recent meeting with a group of women journalists in India.
Rajkumar Sharma, the youth wing vice president of Brahmin organisation Vipra Foundation, had filed a case of defamation against Dorsey before a metropolitan magistrate in Jodhpur last month. Sharma said the post was “anti-Brahmin” and used coarse language, which was humiliating and intolerable for the community. Twitter had issued an apology after the photo was criticised, but Sharma said Dorsey had not yet apologised.
The case was filed under Sections 295A (hurting religious sentiment), 500 (defamation), and 120B (criminal conspiracy) of the Indian Penal Code. In court on Wednesday, Dorsey’s counsels said there was no case made out against him as he did not do anything to disseminate hatred against the community.
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