No Summon or Coercion of Facebook India VP Till Case Is Over: SC
The Supreme Court on Wednesday, 23 September, issued a notice on the petition filed by Facebook India Vice President against summons issued by Delhi Assembly panel and said there will be no further meetings with Ajit Mohan until the case is disposed of.
A Supreme Court bench was hearing Facebook India Vice-President and Managing Director Ajit Mohan’s plea against a notice issued by the Delhi Assembly's Peace and Harmony committee to appear before it.
The panel, chaired by Aam Aadmi Party MLA Raghav Chaddha, had issued notice over the social media platform's alleged role in the Delhi riots in February, reported news agency ANI.
Mohan, in his plea had submitted that the Panel has no right to take action against him as there is no law that empowers a state legislature to take coercive action against any person unless it obstructs or impedes its legislative functions.
A bench of justices SK Kaul, Aniruddha Bose and Krishna Murari heard the plea and also directed that no coercive action be taken against the Facebook India vice president till 15 October.
The Delhi Assembly committee had issued fresh summons to Mohan on Sunday, 21 September, saying that any defiance of the subsequent notice for appearance will be deemed to be an act of "breach of the Constitutionally-guaranteed privileges" of the committee. The committee asked the social media giant to be present before it on 23 September which has now been deferred.
Prior to that, on 15 September, Facebook executives skipped a hearing of the committee.
Facebook had refused to attend the hearing, arguing that they have already appeared before a Parliamentary panel.
The Delhi Assembly Committee on Peace and Harmony had decided to summon Facebook officials while looking into complaints about the social media site's alleged "deliberate and intentional inaction to contain hateful content" in India.
(With inputs from ANI and IANS.)
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