A judge of the Delhi High Court on Tuesday recused himself from hearing a batch of petitions on the issue of suspension and deletion of accounts by social media platforms.
Justice Subramonium Prasad said one of the petitioners, Sanjay Hegde— a senior advocate— is a “good friend” of his and that the pleas be listed before some other bench.
The High Court fixed the matter for further hearing before another judge on August 7.
The High Court is seized of seven petitions by several account holders challenging the suspension and deletion of their accounts by social media platforms, including Twitter.
Senior advocate Hegde approached the high court in 2019 seeking directions to the Centre to lay down guidelines under the Information Technology (IT) Act to ensure that censorship on social media is carried out in accordance with the Constitution.
He had filed the plea after his account on Twitter was permanently suspended on November 5, 2019 allegedly in connection with two re-tweets by him, and sought restoration of his account.
In the written submissions, he has said Twitter discharges a public function of “high public interest” which makes it amenable to the jurisdiction of the high court, and added that a purely private contract can be enforced by a mandamus (judicial writ) if it is found that the body discharges public function.
The submission was made in response to Twitter’s stand that it does not impart public function and “serving the ends of freedom of speech and expression” was only incidental to its contractual relationship with the users.