New Delhi: A Parliamentary panel has questioned Twitter about tweets by standup comedian Kunal Kamra targeting the Supreme Court and the CJI, and sought a reply from the social media platform within a week.
Twitter India representatives deposed before the Joint Committee of Parliament on Data Protection Bill on Thursday.
Panel Chairperson Meenakshi Lekhi said in a tweeet:
"Obscene, no indemnity for such publications."
Talking to reports later on, Lekhi said:
"It is shameful that Twitter is allowing its platform for obscene remarks like the one by stand-up comedian Kunal Kamra against the Supreme Court and the CJI".
Twitter was already receiving flak for wrongly showing Ladakh in China. It however apologised to the House panel in writing on the matter.
Earlier, a plea was moved in the Supreme Court by a group of lawyers and law students to initiate proceedings against Kamra for what the petitioners believe "scandalising the court through his tweets."
"The alleged contemnor (Kamra) has the following of 1.7 million people. The scandalous tweets of the alleged contemnor were seen by his followers and many of them retweeted the same", said the plea.
Citing Section 2 (c) (i) of Contempt of Courts Act, 1971, the petitioners argued that this section is explicit and the tweets published by Kamra clearly show he allegedly committed gross contempt of the apex court.
The plea emphasised that every follower of Kamra on Twitter must have read the tweets and more than one thousand people have retweeted the scandalous tweets.
The petitioners insisted that Kamra was fully aware of his action. "When some persons tried to make the alleged contemnor aware about the contempt of this court, the alleged contemnor was rude, arrogant and unapologetic. The conduct of the alleged contemnor shows that he has no regard for this court", said the plea.
Kunal Kamar on the other hand wrote an open letter saying his tweets revealed nothing but truth, and refused to apologise or take back his comments.
"My view hasn’t changed because the silence of the Supreme Court of India on matters of others’ personal liberty cannot go uncriticized. I don’t tend to retract my tweets or apologise for them. I believe they speak for themselves", Kamra wrote in the letter shared on Twitter.
Titled "No lawyers, No apology, No fine, No waste of space", Kunal Kamra addressed his letter to "Dear Judges, Mr K.K. Venugopal".
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