Former chief of Amnesty India Aakar Patel withdrew Thursday his interlocutory application (IA) from the Karnataka High Court in the ongoing case filed by Twitter challenging orders issued by the Center for blocking Twitter accounts.
The withdrawal came after Justice Krishna S Dixit hinted that the court will impose heavy penalties—to the tune of Rs 25 lakhs—for wasting its time and to deter such litigants from moving courts to promote somebody else’s cause.
“If your submission is accepted then there could be lakhs of persons whose accounts are blocked. If they are permitted, the Court will be full,” the Court said before Patel withdrew his application.
Justice Dixit adjourned the hearing to November 16 after highlighting that a similar IA filed by Supreme Court advocate Sanjay Hegde was rejected by the court.
Patel, seeking for impleadment as an intervenor, had claimed that he had suffered due to the “unconstitutional blocking orders” that affected his Twitter account. He averred that in June 2020, it appeared to him that the Centre had compelled Twitter to block his account under section 69A of the IT Act.
The former Amnesty India chief, who has been a strident critic of the government and has often levelled allegations against the Centre without furnishing evidence to back it, claimed in the application that he was not heard before issuing the order and the copy of it wasn’t given to him either.
“The respondents (central government) restricted my right to speech and carry on my profession for as yet unknown reasons. I believe that other users of Twitter and other social media platforms have faced similar concerns as me, many of whom may be affected by the impugned orders but are not represented in the present proceedings,” Patel stated in his IA.
However, Justice Dixit considered Aakar Patel’s petition as infructuous and warned him of heavy penalties should he persist with it, following which he withdrew his application.