The Ghaziabad police on Monday warned the Twitter India managing director that his failure to report to it and join its investigation on June 24 in the case of the circulation of a communally sensitive video on its platform would amount to a hindrance in its probe, entailing legal consequences.
Managing Director Manish Maheshwari, who lives in Bengaluru in Karnataka, was issued notice by the Ghaziabad police on June 17 and asked to report at its Loni Border police station within seven days to get his statement recorded in the case, the officials added.
The Karnataka high court on Friday quashed the notice issued to Twitter India Managing Director Manish Maheshwari by the Uttar Pradesh police, seeking his personal appearance as part of its probe into a communally sensitive video uploaded by a user on Twitter platform, saying it was issued by mala fide.
The Uttar Pradesh Police has filed the FIR against Twitter Inc, Twitter Communications India, news portal The Wire, scribes Mohammed Zubair and Rana Ayyub, and senior journalist and author Saba Naqvi, besides Congress leaders Salman Nizami, Masqoor Usmani and Sama Mohammad for sharing the video clip on the social media.
The single bench of Justice G Narender said the police can examine Maheshwari through virtual mode.
Manish Maheshwari has been asked to appear at the Loni Border police station here within seven days to get his statement recorded in the case in which an FIR was lodged against the social media giant also, a police official said.
The Supreme Court on Friday sought response from former Twitter managing director Manish Maheshwari on an appeal of the Uttar Pradesh government against the Karnataka high court's decision to quash a notice seeking his personal appearance as part of the probe into a communally sensitive video uploaded by a user on the microblogging site.
The Special Cell has sent a notice to Twitter in connection with an inquiry into a complaint regarding the alleged 'COVID-19 toolkit' and sought a clarification from the microblogging site for classifying a related tweet by Bharatiya Janata Party leader Sambit Patra as "manipulative", an official said on Monday.
The map, which showed the Union Territories of Ladakh, Jammu and Kashmir outside India, was noticed on Monday, leading to an uproar by netizens.
The police had also visited the Twitter India offices in Lado Sarai, Delhi and Gurgaon on May 24 with the notice over the tagging some of the posts on an alleged Congress "toolkit" against the Central government, as "manipulated media".
A preliminary enquiry into the complaint is still being carried out by the Delhi Police's Special Cell team and no FIR has been registered in the matter yet, officials said.
Amid a tussle between the Union government and Twitter over the new IT rules, officials of the microblogging site on Friday deposed before a parliamentary panel chaired by Congress's Shashi Tharoor over preventing misuse of social media.