Bluetick Twitter: Delhi HC dismisses plea of former CBI boss M Nageswara Rao, fines him Rs 10,000

New Delhi: Delhi High Court fined former CBI interim director M Nageswara Rao for filing a petition seeking restoration of the blue tick (verification tag) on his Twitter account.

The court imposed a cost of Rs 10,000 for filing a petition barely a month after the order was passed in this matter.

Dismissing his plea, a single judge bench of Justice Yashwant Varma said the court has already passed an order in the matter.

The bench also came down heavily on the petitioner during the hearing. "We passed an order on April 7. What has constrained you to approach the court immediately? Your client seems to have a lot of free time. Do you want a return gift from us," the bench remarked?

Advocate Raghav Awasthi, appearing for Rao, argued that his last communication with Twitter was on April 18 and his verification is yet to be restored.

Awasthi requested the court to list the matter with a batch of matters dealing with the same issue.

The Court, however, refused the request and dismissed the petition with costs.

Rao had approached the Court seeking restoration of the blue tick (verification tag) on his Twitter account which was removed by the micro-blogging website in March.

A petition had been filed by Rao earlier as well. However, on April 7, the Court refused to interfere in the plea and asked the retired IPS officer to approach Twitter with his complaint first.

"The court further provides that it shall be open to the petitioner to pursue appropriate remedies as may be available in law in case he faces any adverse decision made by the private respondent," Justice Varma had said in the order passed last month.

In his new petition filed through advocate Mukesh Sharma, Rao said that he had written several emails to the social media platform but, as expected, his verification tag has not been restored.

Apart from seeking restoration of his verification, Rao also sought a direction from the Central government to designate or earmark one or more Compliance and Grievance officers within the Ministry.

The officers, the plea argued, should exclusively handle grievances or complaints from users of social media platforms like Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram relating to compliance with the law and rules including verification of user identity so that the general public is not subjected to unnecessary harassment.

A 1986-batch IPS officer from Telangana, who retired in August 2020, Rao is known for his viral tweets on the social media platform. On April 7, 2016, Rao was appointed as the Joint Director of the CBI for five years. Before that, he was the Additional Director General of Odisha Police.