Views on judiciary okay if shared in a respectful manner: Delhi HC

Every person is entitled to having his views on the Indian judiciary as long as they are bona fide and expressed in a respectful manner, the Delhi high court observed on Tuesday.

Every person is entitled to having his views on the Indian judiciary as long as they are bona fide and expressed in a respectful manner, the Delhi high court observed on Tuesday.

Every person is entitled to having his views on the Indian judiciary as long as they are bona fide and expressed in a respectful manner, the Delhi high court has said.

Justice Prateek Jalan was hearing a plea by Abhijit Iyer Mitra seeking restoration of his Twitter account when it took note of his “retweet” on the judiciary being “both biased and unaccountable”, and questioned if courts should do somersaults to grant equitable relief in favour of those holding such a view.

“You are entitled to have your views about our judiciary so long as they are bona fide and expressed in a manner that is respectful and not contumacious. You are entitled to those views but when you come to court for an equitable relief, then I am also entitled to see that he who seeks equity, does equity,” the judge said.

“He is entitled to hold this view... I am very comfortable with the notion that there will be people who think this of our judiciary. But I am wondering whether the judiciary should turn somersaults to grant equitable relief in favour of those persons,” he added.

Mitra moved the high court earlier this year, claiming after his tweet in relation to the bail granted by the Supreme Court to Alt News co-founder Mohammed Zubair in a criminal case, Twitter “unilaterally” banned his twitter account, thereby making it completely inaccessible for the former to engage with his 1.5 lakh followers.

On Tuesday, Mitra’s counsel said that his client’s “retweet”, which is not the subject matter of the lawsuit, might not be an endorsement and urged the court to hear his plea seeking interim relief of reinstatement of his account during the pendency of the lawsuit, “especially with the tension brewing at Tawang border”, which made it important for the plaintiff, a defence analyst, to air the “Indian point of view”.

The court, however, told Mitra that India was not a monolith and his view was not necessarily the “Indian point of view”.

“You are entitled to air your view but your view is not necessarily the Indian point of view. You can air your view but please don’t arrogate to yourself the responsibility of airing the Indian point of view… India is not a monolith. Lots of Indians have different views on lots of issues. Each one of them is entitled to air their views including you,” the court said.

The court listed the case for further hearing on February 16 and directed Twitter to submit its reply within four weeks.