MANISH MAHESWARI Vs. STATE OF UTTAR PRADESH

JUDGEMENT

(1.) Heard the learned Senior counsel Sri. C.V. Nagesh along with Sri. Mrinal Shankar, Sri. Vishwas N. and Sri. Manu Kulkarni, learned counsel for the petitioner and learned counsel Sri. Prasanna Kumar P, for the respondent.

(2.) Brief facts are that the petitioner is an employee of Twitter Communications India Private Limited (for short TCIPL) and that he is the revenue head in-charge of advertising and sales. He being a senior employee of the company TCIPL, a public designation of Managing Director is provided to the petitioner but he has not been appointed as the Managing Director in terms of Sec. 2(54) of the Companies Act. Therefore the petitioner has never been and is not a member of the Board of Directors of TCIPL. That the said fact is borne out by the Company Master Data maintained by the Authority and which fact is made available publicly on the website of the Ministry of Corporate Affairs, a copy of which is produced as Annexure-C. A bare perusal of Annexure-C would reveal that the petitioner is not one of the Directors amongst the three named in the master data. It is also relevant to note that the address of the registered office of TCIPL is described as C-20, G Block, Near MCA Bandra Kurla Complex, Bandra (E), Mumbai, Mumbai City, Maharashtra 400 051, India and the address of the other office, where all or any books of accounts and papers are maintained is described as Unit No. 101, First Floor, Tower 'B, RMZ Infinity, Old Madras Road, Benniganahalli, Bengaluru 560 016, Karnataka, India. The e-mail ID in the master data is akapoor@twitter.com. The date of incorporation is shown as 20/2/2013. The petitioner is discharging his duties as an employee of TCIPL at the registered office at Bengaluru and is also residing at Bengaluru in the address detailed in the cause title.

(3.) The circumstances compelling the petitioner to approach this Court are as under: A complaint came to be registered on 15/6/2021 at 23.20 hours on the information furnished by one Sri. Naresh Singh, Sub-Inspector, Thana Loni Border, Ghaziabad, U.P., India. In the said complaint 9 accused were named and action was sought against the accused on the ground that they are responsible for the transmission and further transmission of certain tweets and video. The allegation, in sum and substance, against accused Nos. 8 and 9 is that they failed to stop the transmission by removing the tweets despite being made aware that the incident on which the tweets are based is a false news and that false news should not be propagated. The background of the incident that led to the complaint and tweet is that there was an incident of an aged person by name Sri. Abdul Samad Saifi who was beaten and his beard was forcibly chopped off. The physical occurrence of the incident was videographed and the said video came to be uploaded on the social media platform popularly known as Twitter (8th accused). That the video that was uploaded was a doctored video and the manipulation involved purported act of forcing the victim to chant Jai Sri Ram and Vande Maataram. But, in fact, the group was a mix of members from both Hindu and Muslim community and that there was no coercion to chant Jai Sri Ram or Vande Maataram and that the assailants had assaulted the victim as they were unhappy with the amulets distributed by him, claiming that they possessed certain super-natural powers. The doctored video was immediately taken up by some of the accused with the sole intention of spreading communal disharmony and accused Nos. 1, 2, 3, 5, 6 and 7 have re-tweeted knowing fully well that it is a false news. That apart, the tweet by the aforesaid accused, has been re-tweeted by several others also due to which the doctored video and false news has spread on a large scale leading to increasing religious tension. Despite the clarification issued by the Ghaziabad Police, neither the doctored video nor the tweets have been deleted by the authorities who run and maintain the social medial platform. In fact the complaint against the petitioners employers as per the complainant is as under: Apart from this, the said video has also been retweeted by many others, due to which the false news has spread on a large scale. It is also worth mentioning that despite the clarification issued by Ghaziabad Police (correct facts) by the accused, their tweets have not been deleted due to which religious tension is increasing further. Additionally, Twitter Inc. and Twitter Communication India Private Limited (TCIPL) also did not take any steps to remove the said tweets. 7- It is also worth mentioning here that according to the press release, people of both communities are involved in the mischievous elements and there is no community angle in the incident.