Mumbai, Oct 21 Mumbai Police have issued legal notices to 24 ‘X’ (formerly Twitter) account holders, days after they shared a controversial documentary posted by tech entrepreneur Sabeer Bhatia.
The notices were issued on October 18, days after the documentary, allegedly containing false and disparaging claims about Prime Minister Narendra Modi and industrialist Gautam Adani, sparked a controversy.
The notices stated that cyber police had received a formal complaint alleging that multiple X handles had published highly objectionable content targeting a prominent business conglomerate.
The links mentioned in the notices directed to Bhatia’s X account.
The content allegedly had false, misleading, and disparaging statements and allegations against the company, which were circulated without any factual or lawful basis, causing continuous harm to its reputation, goodwill and public image, the notices said.
The publication of such content violated platform guidelines and constituted offenses punishable under Sections 352 (intentional insult with intent to provoke breach of the peace) and 356 (defamation) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS), they said.
The notices asked the platform and account holders to urgently review the objectionable posts and remove or disable access to the content.
While several account holders complied by deleting the video clips, others publicly shared copies of the police notice on their handles, alleging overreach and terming the action as unjust.
“Mumbai Police asked me to take down certain highly objectionable tweets. I have complied and removed them,” Bhatia, the Indian-American entrepreneur who co-founded the first free web-based email service Hotmail.com in 1996, said on X.
“The “highly objectionable” tweet merely pointed out alleged corruption at the highest levels of power,” he said.
The law enforcement agency apparently found the corruption less objectionable than the act of exposing it, he added.
“When pointing out wrongdoing becomes a greater offense than the wrongdoing itself, who is the law really protecting?
“I regret to inform the good people of India that their fundamental right to free speech is being curtailed by the government. This government is no longer of the people, by the people, or for the people,” he said.
“I am deeply disappointed. In a nation of 1.45 billion people, citizens are afraid to open their mouths and speak about what they see. How can anyone hope to fix India when fear has silenced its people?” he said on X.
A nation cannot progress when speaking the truth requires courage, Bhatia said.
(PTI News)
