On Thursday (September 8), the Delhi High Court removed the penalty of ₹25000 that it had imposed on M Nageswara Rao in May this year. The former interim CBI director had moved the court, seeking restoration of his verified blue badge on Twitter.
Rao had tendered an unconditional apology before the court. His counsel conceded that his petition breached the boundary of ‘reasonableness.’ “My lords had imposed a cost of Rs. 25,000 on the petitioner. He was just asking for his identity to be secured, I am not on merits. My only grievance is I am a pensioner,” his counsel emphasised.
A single Judge Bench of Justice Yashwant Varma removed the cost, which was earlier imposed by the Court, on the retired IPS Officer. “Bearing in mind the unconditional apology which is tendered on behalf of the petitioner, the cost in terms of the order dated 17 May 2022 shall stand deleted,” he ordered.
Delhi High Court removes costs imposed on former CBI director M Nageswara Rao in his plea for Twitter blue tick
— Bar & Bench (@barandbench) September 8, 2022
report by @prashantjha996 https://t.co/GB1mbJR5k7
The Background of the Case
M Nageswara Rao had petitioned the High Court, claiming that the verified badge of his Twitter account was arbitrarily removed by the micro-blogging platform in March 2022.
He had also requested that the Centre designate or earmark one or more Compliance and Grievance officers within the Ministry solely to handle grievances or complaints from users of social media platforms
The Court, in its order on April 7, refused to entertain the petition and asked him to approach Twitter first with his complaint. However, the retired IPS officer re-filed his petition in May, hoping for a different outcome.
The single-judge bench of Justice Yashwant Varma reprimanded the ex-CBI director for wasting the court’s time. Varma was of the view that a similar plea with identical prayers was disposed of by the Court vide order dated April 7, 2022, by giving liberty to Rao to re-apply for verification.
“We passed an order on 7 April. What has constrained you to approach the court immediately? Your client seems to have a lot of free time. Do you want a return gift from us,” the bench remarked.
Advocate Raghav Awasthi, who represented Rao, argued that Twitter did not reinstate his client’s blue tick verification. The court, however, said that there is no justification for filing the writ petition despite its earlier disposal. A cost of ₹25000 (earlier reported as ₹10000) was imposed on the ex IPS officer.
