On receiving apology, Delhi HC waives cost on ex-CBI officer in Twitter blue-tick plea

- September 8, 2022
| By : Patriot Bureau |

On Thursday, the Delhi High Court granted M Nageswara Rao, a former interim director of the CBI, a reprieve from having to pay a Rs 25,000 cost that had been assessed to him at the time of the dismissal of his appeal regarding the purported deletion of blue tick from his Twitter account by the microblogging service

Photo: Getty

The retired IPS officer formally apologized to the court and said that he was only looking to have his identity protected.

Waiving the cost, Justice Yashwant Varma stated, “Bearing in mind the unconditional apology which is tendered on behalf of the petitioner, the cost in terms of the order of May 17, 2022 shall stand deleted.”

In May, the court had dismissed Rao’s plea against the removal of the verification tag from his Twitter account. It noted that there was absolutely no justification that warranted the writ petition to be filed bearing in mind that the earlier writ petition was disposed of on 1 April.

The court had provided liberty to Rao on 7 April to pursue appropriate remedies with regard to his grievances in case any adverse decision is made by Twitter.

The plea had said that in pursuance of the court’s order, he reapplied for the verification tag, however, it was not reinstated.

Rao had claimed that his account on Twitter did contain a blue tick: however, it was removed in March 2022.

In the plea, Rao had also sought directions to the Centre to designate or earmark one or more compliance and grievance officers exclusively to handle complaints from users of social media platforms like Twitter, Facebook and Instagram relating to compliance to the law and rules, including verification of user identity, so that people do not face unnecessary harassment.

(With inputs from PTI)

 

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