News Analysis India

Tag: Twitter

  • Dalit girl death: NCPCR asks Twitter to take action on Rahul Gandhi posting photo of victim’s family

    By PTI

    NEW DELHI: Child rights body NCPCR on Wednesday asked Twitter to take action against Congress leader Rahul Gandhi’s handle for sharing on the platform a photo of the family of a Dalit girl allegedly raped and killed in Delhi, saying it violates the Juvenile Justice and POCSO Acts.

    Gandhi on Wednesday met the family of the nine-year-old girl and asserted that he is with them on the path to justice and “will not back down even an inch”.

    Later, he posted a picture of his meeting with the girl’s parents on Twitter and wrote in Hindi, “Parents’ tears are saying only one thing — their daughter, the daughter of this country, deserves justice. And I am with them on this path to justice.”

    The National Commission for Protection of Child Rights sent a letter to the resident grievance officer of Twitter, saying it received a complaint that a photo of the victim’s family has been posted on the Twitter handle @Rahul Gandhi with the caption stating that they are the father and the mother of the child.

    “In the said photo, the faces of the victim’s father and mother can be seen which thereby reveals the identity of the girl,” the apex child rights body said.

    ALSO READ | NCPCR seeks action taken report from police in ‘rape and murder’ of Dalit girl in Delhi’s Nangal

    “Therefore, posting of the photo of the minor victim’s family on the said Twitter handle has been observed by the commission to be a violation of Section 74 of the Juvenile Justice Act, 2015, Section 23 of the POCSO Act, 2012, Section 228A of the IPC and the guidelines of the Hon’ble court as well,” it said.

    Accordingly, the complaint is being forwarded for appropriate action against the Twitter handle and removal of the tweet from the platform, it said.

    The NCPCR requested that an action-taken report in the matter may be sent to the Commission within three days.

    The move comes shortly after BJP spokesperson Sambit Patra accused Gandhi of violating the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act and another law dealing with juveniles by tweeting a picture of the girl’s parents as disclosing any aspect of a rape victim’s identity is an offence.

    Patra urged the NCPCR to take cognisance of the matter and issue notice to the Congress leader.

    Section 74 of the Juvenile Justice Act, 2015, prohibits disclosure of the identity of children while Section 23 of the POCSO Act, 2012, lays out the procedure for media coverage of such cases and Section 228 of the IPC prohibits publishing the identity of sexual assault and rape victim.

    The girl died under mysterious circumstances when she went to get water from a cooler at a crematorium Old Nangal area in southwest Delhi.

    The girl’s parents alleged that she was raped and her body was forcibly cremated by a crematorium priest who had falsely claimed that she was electrocuted.

    Hundreds of locals, including the victim’s parents, have been staging a protest near the site of the incident, demanding capital punishment for the convicts.

    Police had on Monday said that based on the statement of the victim’s mother, rape charges have been added in the FIR.

    Four people, including the priest, have been arrested.

    The Delhi Commission for Women (DCW) has launched an inquiry into the incident.

  • Twitter non-compliant with IT Rules on May 26, named officials as contingent arrangement later: MoS IT

    By PTI
    NEW DELHI: Twitter was non-compliant with the IT rules on May 26 when the new regulations came into effect but the microblogging platform has subsequently appointed a chief compliance officer and a resident grievance officer as a contingent arrangement, Parliament was informed on Thursday.

    Twitter has also informed the IT Ministry about its physical contact address in India, and has published a compliance report for June 2021, Minister of State for Electronics and IT Rajeev Chandrasekhar said in a written reply in the Rajya Sabha.

    Chandrasekhar also said the statement made by Twitter earlier in May expressing concerns over potential threat to freedom of expression and staff safety was possibly an effort to divert attention from its non-compliance to IT Rules and Indian laws at that stage.

    The Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021 notified on February 25, 2021 have become fully effective from May 26, 2021, including for additional due diligence to be followed by Significant Social Media Intermediaries (SSMIs), he said.

    “On that day, Twitter was non-compliant. Subsequently, they have appointed Chief Compliance Officer and a Resident Grievance Officer as a contingent arrangement and have also informed the Ministry about physical contact address in India. They have also published the compliance report of June 2021,” he said.

    The minister went on to add that major digital platforms, including Facebook, Google, Twitter, LinkedIn and WhatsApp, have informed this ministry regarding appointment of chief compliance officer, nodal contact person and resident grievance officer as well as their physical contact addresses in India.

    They have also started publishing a monthly compliance report, he informed the Upper House.

    “In case of non-compliance with the Rules, the intermediaries including SSMIs shall lose their exemption from liability under section 79 of IT Act and rule 7 of the above said Rules becomes applicable,” Chandrasekhar said.

    On a question about Twitter’s statement on May 27 airing concerns over potential threat to freedom of expression and safety of its employees in India, Chandrasekhar asserted that freedom of speech and expression is a constitutionally guaranteed Fundamental Right and the company’s statement was “possibly an effort to divert the attention” from the non-compliance to the Information Technology rules.

    “The statement of Twitter was possibly an effort to divert the attention from the non-compliance to the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021 and Indian laws at that stage,” he said.

    The minister emphasised that the government is committed to the growth of a vibrant technology and internet ecosystem in the country.

    “Government has also assured that representatives of social media platforms, including Twitter, remain safe in India and there is no threat to their personal safety and security,” he pointed out.

    To another question on whether the government would reconsider the guidelines that suggest indirectly the breaking of end-to-end encryption of messages, Chandrasekhar said the rules “do not seek breaking the end-to-end encryption”.

    Neither the IT Act nor the new social media rules contravene freedom of speech and expression or right to privacy, he added.

  • Twitter India MD says parent body Twitter Inc has no share holding in his company

    By PTI
    BENGALURU: Twitter India is an independent entity as its parent company Twitter Inc does not have a single share in it, Twitter India Managing Director Manish Maheshwari claimed in the Karnataka High Court on Thursday.

    The submission was made during the hearing by a single judge bench on a petition by Maheshwari, challenging the notice issued by Uttar Pradesh police, seeking his personal appearance as part of its probe into a communally sensitive video uploaded by a user on the Twitter platform.

    The order by Justice G Narendra is expected to be pronounced on Friday.

    As Justice Narendar sought to know whether the US- headquartered Twitter Inc could be called as a parent company, Maheshwari’s counsel C V Nagesh said, “Twitter Inc is a parent company. We have absolutely nothing to do with that (Twitter Inc). It (Twitter India) is an independent organisation and independent institution.”

    When the judge asked about the promoters and the shareholding patterns of Twitter India, Nagesh said Twitter India is only an affiliated company of Twitter Inc.

    The judge then pointed out that there is no such thing like affiliated company.

    In normal terms it is called a sister company or associate, depending on the shareholding and memorandum of association.

    To this, Nagesh said “Let me go on record that Twitter USA (Inc) does not hold a single share in Twitter India. That’s why I am submitting that it’s a totally different entity.”

    P Prasanna Kumar, counsel for Ghaziabad police, said that Twitter Inc will face the “consequences for saying that they do not know who Twitter India is”. Kumar said “My instructions are that 99 per cent of shares of the company are with Twitter Inc.”

    “All the colleagues of the petitioner have been representing Twitter India, as well as Twitter Inc before the Central government agencies even to this day”, Kumar said.

    He argued that “unless Twitter India officials were connected to each other”, the board of Twitter Inc.

    would not have authorised its Twitter India employees to represent before the Central government agencies.

    Justice Narendar maintained that the board of directors can authorise anybody.

    During the argument, Nagesh offered to place a memo on record on Friday that Twitter USA is not even a shareholder.

    Explaining about the share-holding pattern, he said the Twitter International Company, headquartered in Ireland, has 9,999 shares, whereas Twitter Netherlands has one share.

    However, it is Twitter Inc which runs the platform.

    The Ghaziabad (Uttar Pradesh) police had issued a notice under Section 41-A of the CrPC on June 21,asking Maheshwari to report at Loni Border police station at 10:30 AM on June 24.

    He then moved the Karnataka High Court as he lives in Bengaluru in Karnataka.

    On June 24, the High Court, in an interim order, restrained Ghaziabad police from initiating any coercive action against him.

    Justice Narendar had also maintained that if the police wanted to examine him, they could do so through virtual mode.

    The Ghaziabad Police on June 15 booked Twitter Inc, Twitter Communications India Pvt.Ltd.

    (Twitter India), news website The Wire, journalists Mohammed Zubair and Rana Ayyub, besides Congress leaders Salman Nizami, Maskoor Usmani, Shama Mohamed and writer Saba Naqvi.

    They were booked over the circulation of a video in which an elderly man Abdul Shamad Saifi alleges that he was thrashed by some young men, who also asked him to chant ‘Jai Shri Ram’ on June 5.

    According to police, the video was shared to cause communal unrest.

  • Rahul moves into chatty, interactive Twitter zone, asks what people are reading

    By PTI
    NEW DELHI: Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Friday signalled a shift in his social media outreach, going from mostly commentative to conversational with this simple poser: “I’m wondering what you guys are reading these days?” Gandhi’s communication on Twitter and maybe other social media platforms is set for a makeover and will get more interactive in the days to come, party insiders said.

    And the casual, informal question on Twitter is perhaps the first step towards that.

    Sources said the former Congress president, who has 19.3 million followers on Twitter, may in the next few days share on Twitter the books he is reading.

    Gandhi — who usually posts trenchant comments about the government, makes observations on news developments of the day, tagging articles of interest, or condoles the death of a known person, now wants his social media engagement to be more interactive so his connect with people increases, the sources added.

    Pratishtha Singh, a former Mahila Congress functionary, is playing a key role in reshaping his outreach on Twitter.

    The un-following of some Twitter handles, including of journalists and some of his staff, was also part of his social media revamp, the insiders said.

    On his birthday on June 19, Gandhi for the first time responded on Twitter to random people who wished him.

    He also replied to political leaders who had extended wishes to him on the social media platform.

    In less than an hour, Friday’s open ended question on what his followers are reading saw more than 13,000 likes and 2,200 comments, many trolling him and some responding earnestly with their book list.

    In the coming few days, more interactive engagements are in store from Gandhi’s handle, the sources said.

  • India single largest source of govt information requests, says Twitter

    By ANI
    NEW DELHI: India is the single largest source of government information requests during the second half of 2020, accounting for 25 per cent of the global volume, as per the Twitter Transparency Report released on Wednesday.

    India accounted for 25 per cent of the global volume of requests and 15 per cent of the global accounts involved, during the July-December 2020 period.

    During this period, Twitter received 38,524 legal demands to remove content specifying 131,933 accounts. Responding to these demands, Twitter withheld or otherwise removed some or all of the reported content in response to 29 per cent of these global legal demands.

    “Over the past year, we have experienced and continue to navigate severe global challenges, including the coronavirus pandemic. We have also seen concerted attempts by governments to limit access to the Internet generally and to Twitter specifically,” the company said in a blog.

    For the June-December period, the compliance rate for government information requests was 30 per cent globally. The second highest volume of information requests originated from the United States, comprising 22 per cent of global information requests.

    The United States submitted the highest volume of global emergency requests (34 per cent), followed by Japan (17 per cent), and South Korea (16 per cent).

    Also, 94 per cent of the total global volume of legal demands originated from only five countries — Japan, India, Russia, Turkey, and South Korea.

    Twitter also said that accounts of 199 verified journalists and news outlets from around the world were subject to 361 legal demands, which is a 26 per cent increase from the January-June period.

    The company noted that while the total number of legal demands dropped by 9 per cent compared to the last reporting period, the requests received during July-December sought content removal from “the largest number of accounts ever in a single reporting period”.

    Recently, Twitter named Vinay Prakash as the Resident Grievance Officer for India. For the past several months, Twitter has been involved in a stand-off with the Indian government over the new amendments in the country’s new Information Technology laws with the micro-blogging platform losing its intermediary status and becoming liable for user-generated content.

    According to amended IT rules, social media and streaming companies will be required to take down contentious content quicker and appoint grievance redressal officers based in the country to deal with online content flagged by authorities and courts and assist in investigations. 

  • India accounted for highest number of government requests for account information in July-December 2020: Twitter

    By PTI
    NEW DELHI: India was the single largest source of government requests for account information that Twitter received during the July-December 2020 period, accounting for 25 per cent of the global volume, the microblogging platform said on Wednesday.

    This is the first time since Twitter started publishing its transparency report in 2012 where the US is not the top global requester, the company said.

    A total of 14,561 government requests were received globally, which includes 12,109 routine and 2,452 emergency requests in the second half of 2020.

    India accounted for 3,615 requests (3,463 routine requests and 152 emergency requests) in the same time frame.

    Twitter brings out with a biannual transparency report where it shares details on the number of government and legal requests, removal requests and data around accounts actioned for various violations and breach of rules.

    India also ranked second in terms of volume of legal demands for content removal, after Japan, Twitter said in a blog that provided an update to its transparency report.

    It is pertinent to mention here that Twitter had come under fire over its failure to comply with the IT rules in India, despite repeated reminders from the government.

    The government has also confronted Twitter over multiple instances in the past months, including during the farmers’ protest and later when it tagged political posts of several leaders of the ruling party BJP as ‘manipulated media’.

    Matters came to a head when non-compliance with new IT rules led to Twitter losing its legal shield as an intermediary in the country, and becoming liable for any unlawful content posted by its users.

    Twitter — which has an estimated 1.75 crore users in India — recently appointed a Resident Grievance Officer, days after it designated a Chief Compliance Officer, and also released its first India Transparency Report on Sunday to comply with the new IT rules.

    In its blog on Wednesday, Twitter said it produced some or all of the requested information in response to 30 per cent of the global information requests by governments in July-December 2020 period.

    “India is the single largest source of government information requests, accounting for 25 per cent of the global volume and 15 per cent of the global accounts specified. The second highest volume of information requests originated from the US, comprising 22 per cent of global information requests,” it added.

    Japan (17 per cent) and France (14 per cent) followed in the list.

    “Combined, these four countries accounted for 78 per cent of all global information requests during this reporting period,” it said.

    Twitter received 1,096 (46 per cent) more routine requests from India, while the number of accounts specified increased by 1,602 (27 per cent) during the reporting period over January-June 2020, it added.

    During the latest reporting period (July-December 2020), Twitter received 38,524 legal demands globally to remove content specifying 131,933 accounts.

    The platform withheld or otherwise removed some or all of the reported content in response to 29 per cent of these global legal demands.

    “Although there was a 9 per cent decrease in the number of legal demands Twitter received, compared to the previous reporting period, these requests sought removal of content from the largest number of accounts ever in a single reporting period,” Twitter added.

    About 94 per cent of the total global volume of legal demands originated from only five countries (in decreasing order) – Japan, India, Russia, Turkey, and South Korea.

    After Japan, the next highest volume of legal demands came from India, comprising 18 per cent of global legal demands and representing a 152 per cent increase from the previous reporting period.

    “Notably, the number of accounts specified in requests from India also increased by 45 per cent this reporting period,” Twitter said.

    The US-based social media giant said accounts of 199 verified journalists and news outlets from around the world were subject to 361 legal demands – a 26 per cent increase in these requests since the previous reporting period.

    “These included removal requests from India (128), Turkey (108), Pakistan (52), and Russia (28),” it added.

    In its blog on Wednesday, Twitter said impressions on violative tweets accounted for less than 0.1 per cent of all impressions for all tweets globally from July-December 2020.

    The impressions metric captures the number of views a violative tweet received prior to removal.

    During this time, Twitter removed 3.8 million tweets that violated its rules.

    About 77 per cent of these received fewer than 100 impressions prior to removal, 17 per cent had received between 100 and 1,000 impressions and 6 per cent of the removed tweets had more than 1,000 impressions.

    “Our goal is to improve these numbers over time, taking enforcement action on violative content before it’s even viewed,” Twitter said.

  • MP government authorises home secretary to issue notices to social media companies against unlawful content

    By PTI
    BHOPAL: The Madhya Pradesh government on Wednesday authorised its home secretary to issue notices to social media companies, if they are found carrying unlawful content, like promotion of terror activities and child pornography, an official said.

    Through a notice, the official will ask a social media company to immediately remove the unlawful content from its portal, he said.

    “The state’s home secretary has been authorised to issue a notice under the IT Act against online transmission of unlawful posts on social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and others for their immediate removal,” additional chief secretary (ACS) home, Dr Rajesh Rajora, said.

    This authority was given by the home department in consultation with the law and science and technology departments of the state, he said.

    On receiving information about unlawful posts on social media platforms, the home secretary will issue notices in designated formats to the concerned companies for the immediate removal of such content, the official said.

    Objectionable content relates to child pornography, promotion of terror activities, selling illegal arms, inciting violence, crime related to untouchability, cyber crimes, encouragement to suicide, spreading rumours, wrong depiction of India’s map, child marriage, financial crimes, cruelty against animals, misleading information about medicines and selling of crackers online, among others, are the areas in which the home secretary is authorized to issue notices to the social media platforms, he said.

    The opposition Congress, however, slammed the Shivraj Singh Chouhan-led BJP government in the state over the order, terming it as “Tughlaqi” (unreasonable).

    Madhya Pradesh Congress media coordinator Narendra Saluja said, “As the state government is unable to bear the criticism against it on the social media, it has issued a Tughlaqi order, and it will decide whether whatever one has posted on social media is right or wrong.”

  • SC to hear plea for probe into ‘Islamophobic posts’ on Twitter after Tablighi Jamaat congregation

    By PTI
    NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court Monday asked a petitioner to peruse new IT rules and said it may hear next week his plea seeking a probe either by CBI or NIA against Twitter and its users for allegedly posting “Islamophobic posts” after Tablighi Jamaat congregation at Nizamuddin last year which was purportedly dubbed as one of the reasons for spread of COVID-19.

    A bench of Chief Justice N V Ramana and justice A S Bopanna, at the outset, asked lawyer Khaja Aijazuddin, who has filed the plea in his personal capacity, to approach the Central government with the petition in which he has also sought a direction for framing guidelines under the Information Technology Act against spreading of “hate messages against any religious community including Islamophobic posts on various Social Media platforms”.

    “Have you read the latest IT Rules,” the bench asked the lawyer during the hearing conducted through video conferencing here.

    As Aijazuddin started reading the new IT Rules, the bench said it is posting the matter after a week and in the meantime, the petitioner may peruse the rules and come back prepared.

    An appeal was filed by Aijazuddin against an order of April 22 of the Telangana High Court asking him to approach the apex court for relief of seeking directions to the Centre to restrain all online social media networks in India and not to carry out any Islamophobic posts.

    The plea also said with respect to the prayer for issuing directions to the Centre to register criminal complaint against Twitter and its users for allegedly spreading “hatred”, the High Court merely directed the Central government to consider the petition.

    “However, no clear direction regarding the same (registration of FIR) was given by the High Court,” the plea alleged.

    A religious congregation Tablighi Jamaat was organized at Nizamuddin here from March 13 to March 15 last year and this was allegedly dubbed as one of the key reasons for the spread of COVID-19 in the country.

    The plea alleged Islamophobic posts on various social media platforms were spread after the religious congregation showing believers of a particular faith in poor light.

  • Received 94 grievances, actioned 133 URLs in May 26-June 25: Twitter compliance report

    By PTI
    NEW DELHI: Twitter received 94 grievances and “actioned” 133 URLs between May 26 and June 25, the microblogging platform said in its maiden monthly compliance report as mandated by the IT rules.

    The US-based company, which has been in the eye of a storm over its failure to comply with the new IT rules in India, has also named Vinay Prakash as its resident grievance officer for India to comply with the said rules.

    Twitter, in the report titled ‘India Transparency Report: User Grievances and Proactive Monitoring July 2021’, said it had received 94 grievances via its grievance officer-India channel between May 26, 2021, and June 25, 2021, that included content on Twitter.

    This includes complaints received from individual users with accompanying court orders.

    The majority of complaints received in this channel during the reporting period fell into categories including defamation (20), abuse/harassment (6), sensitive adult content (4), impersonation and privacy infringement (3 each), IP-related Infringement (1), and misinformation/synthetic and manipulated media (1).

    The total number of URLs actioned in these categories stood at — defamation (87), abuse/harassment (38), sensitive adult content (nil), impersonation (1), privacy infringement (6), IP-related infringement (nil), and misinformation/synthetic and manipulated media (1), as per the report.

    “In addition to the above data, we processed 56 grievances which were appealing Twitter account suspensions.

    These were all resolved and the appropriate responses were sent,” Twitter said.

    It added that the platform “overturned seven of the account suspensions based on the specifics of the situation, but the other accounts remain suspended”.

    In a separate category — ‘Proactive Monitoring Data’, Twitter said 18,385 accounts were suspended over the issue of child sexual exploitation, non-consensual nudity, and similar content, while 4,179 accounts were suspended for promotion of terrorism.

    Twitter, however, said the ‘Proactive Monitoring Data’ represents global actions taken, and not just actions related to content from India.

    ‘Proactive Monitoring’ refers to content proactively identified by employing internal proprietary tools and industry hash sharing initiatives, it added.

    Twitter said each user complaint received via the India grievance channel is assessed under its terms of service (ToS) and rules, and any content that is determined to be in violation is “actioned” in line with its range of enforcement options.

    This includes tweet level enforcement (like labeling of tweets, limiting visibility and removal), direct message-level enforcement and Account-level enforcement ( includes permanent suspension) among other actions.

    Twitter noted that going forward, it will publish this report on a monthly basis and that it will make improvements over time, based on feedback received from the government, or in accordance with internal changes that allow it to provide more granular data.

    Companies including Google, Facebook and Koo have already published their maiden compliance reports as required under the IT rules.

    Facebook had said it “actioned” over 30 million content pieces across 10 violation categories during May 15-June 15 in the country, while Instagram took action against about two million pieces across nine categories during the same period.

    This data was a part of an interim report on July 2 providing information on the number of content Facebook removed proactively during May 15-June 15.

    The final report will be published on July 15, containing details of user complaints received and action taken.

    The July 15 report will also contain data related to WhatsApp, which is part of Facebook’s family of apps.

    Google, in its report, had stated that 27,762 complaints were received by Google and YouTube in April this year from individual users in India over alleged violation of local laws or personal rights, which resulted in removal of 59,350 pieces of content.

    Koo, in its report, had said it proactively moderated 54,235 content pieces, while 5,502 posts were reported by its users during June.

    India is a major market for global digital platforms.

    As per data cited by the government earlier this year, India has 53 crore WhatsApp users, 41 crore Facebook subscribers and 21 crore Instagram users.

    Koo, a homegrown rival to Twitter, has over 60 lakh users.

    Under the new IT rules, large digital platforms (with over 50 lakh users) are required to publish periodic compliance reports every month, mentioning the details of complaints received and action taken thereon.

    The report has to also include the number of specific communication links or parts of information that the intermediary has removed or disabled access to in pursuance of any proactive monitoring conducted by using automated tools.

    Twitter had courted controversy over the new social media rules, and the Indian government had confronted Twitter over deliberate defiance and failure to comply with the IT rules, despite repeated reminders.

    Twitter, which has an estimated 1.75 crore users in India, lost its legal shield as an intermediary in India, becoming liable for users posting any unlawful content.

    On July 8, Twitter had informed the Delhi High Court that it has appointed an interim chief compliance officer, who is a resident of India, and that it will make an endeavour to fill the regular position within eight weeks as per the IT rules.

    The Delhi High Court had granted two weeks’ to Twitter Inc to file an affidavit, notarised in the US, on compliance with the IT rules and had made it clear that it was not extending any protection to the microblogging platform.

    The High Court had said the Centre was free to take action against Twitter Inc in case of any breach of the IT Rules.

  • Twitter India can’t play hide and seek: UP police

    By Express News Service
    BENGALURU: The Karnataka High Court will pass its order on July 13 on the petition filed by Twitter India Managing Director Manish Maheshwari seeking to quash the June 21 notice issued by the Uttar Pradesh police under Section 14-A of the CrPC in connection with a video uploaded allegedly to promote communal disharmony. Justice G Narendar said that he will dictate the order on Tuesday, after the arguments of the petitioner and the UP police concluded on Friday.

    Advocate P Prasanna Kumar, representing the UP police, argued that the petitioner was required to appear before the police for questioning and not before this court, which is not the territorial jurisdiction, as he claims to be the “country leader at Twitter” on various social platforms, including LinkedIn.  

    Kumar contended that the notice was issued to the petitioner in his capacity as MD of Twitter India and not as an individual. “The petitioner can’t play hide and seek when he has declared himself ‘country leader at Twitter’ and his registered office is in Mumbai. He has to appear before the police who have ample powers to question any person under Section 160 of the CrPC. Moreover, he has to approach the High Court in UP and not in Karnataka, which is not the territorial jurisdiction where the crime was registered,” he argued. 

    Before this, senior advocate C V Nagesh, representing the petitioner, argued that the notice issued to the petitioner lacks “sanction of law” and indicates that it is “an act of intimidation”. Vindictive action has been taken against the petitioner and his fundamental rights has been violated, he argued.

    He said that the petitioner was ready to appear before the police virtually. “Nothing prevented the police from questioning him virtually, but they did not do so even 10 days after this court passed the order to question him virtually, while restraining them from taking any coercive action. Is it their ego? Why do they not want to question him through video conference?” Nagesh said while reiterating that this court has jurisdiction to entertain the petition.

    HC directs State, BBMP to look into immunisation for kids of labourers

    Bengaluru: The Karnataka High Court on Friday directed the State government and the BBMP to look into the issue of regular immunisation for children of migrant and construction workers. A special division bench of Chief Justice Abhay Shreeniwas Oka and Justice Aravind Kumar passed the order after going through the report of the Karnataka State Legal Services Authority (KSLSA), which indicates that such children are more vulnerable to health issues during the pandemic because they are deprived of vaccines like BCG.