NEW DELHI, India—On September 30, a Delhi High Court bench headed by Justices Hima Kohli and Subramonium Prasad refused to entertain personal interest litigation (PIL) seeking action against Twitter “for getting involved in a conspiracy to promote the cause of Khalistan”. The Court turned down the petitioner’s request on the ground that this petition was solely based on claims of the petitioner.
It may be recalled here the petitioner Sangeeta Sharma had sought Delhi High Court’s direction to indict Twitter’s representatives in India under UAPA, sedition charges, waging war against the state and IT Act while claiming that some Twitter handles were “running a secessionist campaign in favor of Khalistan”.
The Delhi High Court has asked the petitioner to approach the government in this concern. “Merely because you say something is in the public interest doesn’t mean you don’t approach the government first,” the court said.
“None of the issues mentioned in this petition have been raised before the Indian government. Instead, this petition has been moved on the basis of claims made by a parliamentarian and news stories,” the Court remarked.
Meanwhile, Twitter and India has received flak for attempting to crush freedom of speech in Western countries. Notably, Twitter acted on orders of India as it sent a warning to the account of World Sikh Organization last month.
In a statement after the action by Twitter, the World Sikh Organization said –
Indian officials will stop at nothing to criminalize dissent and to silence our communities’ voices. Anyone who is critical of India gets flagged as an extremist. One of the tweets to get flagged was remembering Shaheed Jaswant Singh Khalra’s mission of documenting the genocide that took place in Punjab.
Earlier this year when #Sikh was blocked on Facebook and Instagram, WSO was one of the only Canadian Sikh Organizations at the table speaking with the platforms on behalf of the community. We also released a report on India’s crackdown on Sikh social media in July. Read it here.
