The Delhi High Court on Tuesday fined former chief of the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), M Nageswara Rao Rs 10,000 for filing a petition challenging Twitter for removing his blue tick, the verification tag on the micro-blogging platform.
Why Did The Former CBI Chief Get Fined?
The Delhi High Court fined Nageswara Rao for "wasting the court's time". Justice Yashwant Varma said that a similar plea filed by Rao on April 7 was disposed by the court. The court had said that Rao can re-apply for a verification tag on Twitter.
In his fresh petition, Rao said that Twitter had not responded to his application. The High Court, in its May 17 order, however, noted that Twitter must be recognised to have at least taken a reasonable time to decide on the representation.
While dismissing the petition and ordering Rao to pay Rs 10,000 as costs, the court said, "this Court takes note that there was absolutely no justification which warranted the writ petition to be filed bearing in mind that the earlier writ petition was disposed of on April 7."
Why Did Twitter Remove His Blue Tick?
In their response to Rao's first petition, Twitter said that Rao had failed to confirm his email and phone number. Rao said that he filed an application with Twitter to verify his account but did not get a response from Twitter which led him to file a fresh petition in court.
In the support page, Twitter notes that they can remove the blue tick verification at any time without giving notice. This could happen if the user decide to change their username or handle name. The company says that one can expect this to happen if changes in the account made appear misleading or if users substantially alter the persona present on their account. Additionally, if a verified personality loses the position for which they got a blue tick, then the verification badge will get removed.
While there has been a lot of controversy around how Twitter determines who gets the blue tick, Elon Musk, after becoming a part of the Twitter board, suggested that a self-verification system should be in place for Twitter users. "Everyone who signs up for Twitter Blue should get an authentication checkmark," Musk had tweeted. He followed it up by saying that it should be different from "public figure" or "official account" checkmarks.
What Does The Ex-CBI Chief Usually Tweet?
Nageswara Rao, specifically his Twitter handle @MNageswarRaoIPS has been in the news for a lot of controversial tweets.
The pinned tweet of the former CBI director who has over nearly 80k followers on Twitter reads, "Re-Hinduisation of Hindu society is the dire need of the hour."
A glance at his tweets posted just in the last 24 hours reveal the topics Rao usually likes discussing on the social media platform. He often tweets about alleged forced conversion of Hindus, freeing temples from governments and conspiracy theory that Muslims and Christians want to end Hinduism.
It is also not surprising that BOOM has earlier fact-checked Rao for a communal post on Twitter. He had deleted the tweet following the story.