The Delhi High Court on Wednesday asked Facebook to respond to a petition by BJP Tamil Nadu spokesperson S.G. Suryah challenging the decision of the social networking giant to restrict and demonetise his account.
Justice V. Kameswar Rao issued notice to Meta Platforms, the parent company of Facebook, and the Centre while posting the case for hearing on March 30.
Mr. Suryah, in his petition filed through advocate Mukesh Sharma, said that he has a verified Facebook page with a following among various political observers, not only in India but also internationally.
Several limitations
He stated that in December last year, he came to know that two of his Facebook posts were marked as community standard violation and later his Facebook page was restricted for a month with several limitations along with a disclaimer of “risk of my Facebook page getting unpublished”.
Mr. Suryah said the Facebook post pertains to a YouTube video on anti-LTTE speech made by Jnanpith and Sahitya Akademi awardee late Tamil writer Jayakanthan. He said Facebook marked these two posts as “pro-LTTE” and restricted his Facebook page without even giving any opportunity of hearing.
“It seems that the Respondent No.2 [Facebook] misinterpreted the contents of aforesaid two posts, which were posted in Tamil language and took a wrongful decision,” his plea contended. In Facebook, the demonisation of page means that my ability to host or create paid online events got restricted, Mr. Suryah said. He argued that Facebook’s action also imposes an “intolerable and illegal restriction” on the right to freedom of speech and expression guaranteed under the Constitution.
Mr. Suryah has sought that his Facebook account be reinstated with the same reach as it had prior to the action.
