Supreme Court issues notice in UP Police appeal challenging restraint on action against Twitter's Manish Maheshwari

The Supreme Court on Friday issued notice in an appeal filed by the Uttar Pradesh Police against a Karnataka High Court order which had prohibited it from taking coercive action against Twitter's Manish Maheshwari in relation to the Ghaziabad video incident..Notice was issued by a Bench of Chief Justice of India NV Ramana and Justices Surya Kant and Hima Kohli..Appearing for the UP Police, Solicitor General Tushar Mehta told the Bench,"Here is a question of law that needs examination. It is on the territorial jurisdiction of the High Court."CJI Ramana replied,"We issue notice. We will hear the matter in detail.".Maheshwari had moved the Karnataka High Court challenging the notice issued to him under Section 41A CrPC. This was pursuant to an FIR registered against Twitter and others in the backdrop of tweets on a video wherein an elderly Muslim man was asked to shave his beard and was forced to chant "Vande Mataram" and "Jai Shri Ram".The Uttar Pradesh Police had ruled out any "communal angle" and said that Sufi Abdul Samad, the elderly man, was attacked by six men who were unhappy over the tabeez (amulets) he had sold them.The FIR stated that the accused circulated a video of the incident on their Twitter handles without checking its authenticity and gave the video a communal angle with the intention to incite communal hatred between religious communities..The UP Police had questioned the maintainability of the Maheshwari's plea before the Karnataka High Court.In an order passed on July 23 this year, the High Court held that the petition challenging the notice issued to Maheshwari under Section 41A of the Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC) was maintainable.Justice G Narendar of the High Court held that the Section 41A notice was resorted to as an arm-twisting method after Maheshwari did not respond to the initial notice sent to him under Section 160 CrPC. The Court also recorded,"Provisions of the statute cannot be permitted to become tools of harassment. Respondent (UP Police) has not placed even an iota of material to demonstrate even prima facie involvement of the petitioner (Maheshwari)."Justice Narendar took a dim view of UP Police's actions, noting,"There was not only failure of respondent (UP Police) to secure information that is available in the public domain, but the ominous silence maintained on the merits of the matter and an attempt to coax the Court to scrap the petition on jurisdiction...".[BREAKING] Provisions cannot be permitted to become tools of harassment: Karnataka High Court says Manish Maheshwari plea is maintainable