The Delhi High Court on Friday dismissed with Rs 25,000 costs a plea seeking to implead Twitter’s new owner Elon Musk as party to a petition challenging suspension of a user’s account for an alleged violation of its rules.
Justice Yashwant Varma termed the application to be “thoroughly misconceived”.
Gold Rate
07 April 2025
“This application is thoroughly misconceived. It cannot possibly be disputed that a corporate entity is thoroughly represented and therefore, there was no need to file such an application. Accordingly, it is dismissed with a costs of Rs 25,000,” the judge said.
At the outset, the court said “even we need entertainment” and asked the counsel for the petitioner if he was serious in prosecuting the application. To this, advocate Raghav Awasthi, appearing for the petitioner, said his instructions were to press the application.
He said Musk was not only the director but also holds substantial shares in Twitter and was a necessary party in the matter.
The application said that Musk has a very different approach to free speech and, therefore, his views were important to be heard.
Elon Musk has a very different stand on free speech whereby his opinion is that as long as speech does not violate the law of the land in question, the same should not be curtailed by the respondent no. 2 (Twitter), it claimed.
The high court was hearing a petition by Dimple Kaul, who claimed that her Twitter handle had more than 2,55,000 followers and was used to post educational content in relation to history, literature, politics, archaeology, Indic culture, non-violence, equality, and women rights.
