HC reserves verdict on plea against FIR over 'offensive' tweet

The Bombay High Court on Thursdayreserved its verdict on a plea filed by city resident SunainaHoley seeking that the FIR against her for alleged offensivetweet be quashed.

Holey had approached the HC last year seeking that theFIR registered against her by the Mumbai police be quashed.

She was booked under several sections of the IPC,including 153A (promoting enmity between different groups),after she tweeted about a large group of migrants who hadgathered at the Bandra terminus here in April during the firstphase of the COVID-19-enforced nationwide lockdown.

On the previous hearing, a bench of Justices SS Shindeand MS Karnik had asked ifHoley's tweet had led to ''somechain reaction''.

Senior counsel Manoj Mohite, who appeared for theMaharashtra government, told the HC that Holey had over 20,000followers on Twitter and her posts had a large reach.

He had said on the previous hearing that Holey couldbe considered a ''professional tweeter.'' Holey's counsel, Dr Abhinav Chandrachud, however,argued on Thursday that merely having a large follower counton the micro-blogging site did not make his client aprofessional tweeter.

Chandrachud said that Holey's tweet did not mentionany particular religious community and that it had notresulted in any untoward incident.

''It has been nine months, but the police have not beenable to point out any untoward incident,'' he said.

Advocate Mohite, however, said that Holey had tweetedsomething offensive even before the post in question, whichrelated to spread of COVID-19.

''She had tweeted something derogatory previously, andthen the police had written to Twitter to take it down. So itnot that police is vindictive,'' Mohite said.

He, however, added that Holey's tweet in question wasin no way responsible for the migrants' gathering at the spot.

The bench closed all arguments in the case andreserved its order.