Uttar Pradesh police moves SC against relief granted to Twitter India head by Karnataka HC

The Uttar Pradesh police has moved the Supreme Court against an order of the Karnataka High Court restraining it from taking coercive action against Twitter India head Manish Maheshwari in connection with a probe related to the assault on an elderly Muslim man in Ghaziabad there. The high court, on June 24, had granted the relief to Maheshwari by asking Ghaziabad police, which issued the summons, from initiating coercive action against him and said that the investigators can examine him through virtual mode.

"If the police desire to examine the petitioner (Manish Maheshwari), they may do so through virtual mode," the single judge bench of the high court had said.

The state government has filed a special leave petition challenging the high court order saying the right to investigate has been curtailed, sources said.


The Twitter India Managing Director, who lives in Bengaluru, was issued notice by the Ghaziabad Police on June 21 and asked to report at its Loni Border police station at 10.30 am on Thursday to get his statement recorded in the case.

The Ghaziabad Police had on June 15 booked Twitter Inc, Twitter Communications 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 the elderly man, Abdul Shamad Saifi, claims he was allegedly thrashed by some young men who also asked him to chant 'Jai Shri Ram' on June 5.

The police claim the video was shared to cause communal unrest.