Twitter says Wankhede's suit in Mumbai court 'frivolous', seeks its dismissal

Social media giant Twitter on Friday termed as frivolous and not tenable on facts or in law the suit filed by Narcotics Control Bureau NCB Zonal Director in Mumbai Sameer Wankhede and his wife against the company in a court here over some posts on its platform against the coupleWankhede and his actorwife Karnti Redkar had approached a civil court in suburban Borivali last month seeking a direction to restrain social media giants including Twitter from publishing or displaying any malicious and defamatory content against the couple on their platformsThe duo has also sought interim and adinterim reliefs till their application was decidedOn Friday Twitter filed its response before the court saying its an intermediary and not liable for content hosted on its platform under the relevant provisions of the Information Technology Act 2000Also Read Public has right to know that Sameer Wankhede is leading dual life Nawab Malik to Bombay HCIt is entitled to statutory immunity If an intermediary is to regulate content which is available on its platform on its own it loses the safe harbor immunity provided to it under the scheme of the IT Act the reply saidTherefore the microblogging and social networking site cannot be held liable for any objectionable content being posted by its users on its platform it saidThe social media company further said the suit itself and the application herein is false frivolous and vexatious and is not tenable on facts or in law and deserves to be dismissedCiting provisions of the Code of Criminal Procedure CrPC the company said the court doesnt have the jurisdiction to preside over the matterIt said the couple has sought to invoke the jurisdiction of this court based on their residenceHowever it is settled law that the place of residence of the plaintiffs is not relevant to determine the territorial jurisdiction in any suit the reply saidAs per the CrPC a suit can only be filed where the defendant resides or the cause of action arises The plaintiffs have failed to show how the action arose within the jurisdiction of this court it saidOn the interim relief plea the Twitter submitted that the prayer is overbroad and ex facie defective contrary to the settled principles of law and cannot be grantedNo content has been identified in the interim application which is allegedly defamatory it addedThe microblogging site claimed there cannot be a blanket take down of an account unless the court finds that all the tweets are defamatoryThis is more so because the plaintiffs have failed to make the account holder a party it addedIt also denied the allegation that gossip and rumour are blown out of proportion by various users of the social media companyThere is a legal mechanism to regulate content available on the platform However the plaintiffs prayers seek to circumvent that legal process the company told the courtBesides Twitter in the suit filed before the civil court the couple had sought permanent injunction against Google and FacebookThe suit claimed that sponsored misinformation is being spread on social media platforms by various unscrupulous elements at the behest of individuals against whom the NCB officer has actedIt is clear that the misinformation campaign is a consequence of vested interests that are affected by investigations carried out by the NCB official the plea filed through legal firm Rex Legalis has claimedGoogle and Facebook filed their replies on previous hearingThe matter will be next heard on December 21Wankhede and his family members had been locked in a bitter spat with Maharashtra minister Nawab Malik who over the last few months has made a series of allegations against them all denied by the NCB officer and his kinWankhedes father has also filed a defamation suit against the state minister in the Bombay High CourtThis story has been sourced from a third party syndicated feed agencies Midday accepts no responsibility or liability for its dependability trustworthiness reliability and data of the text Midday managementmiddaycom reserves the sole right to alter delete or remove without notice the content in its absolute discretion for any reason whatsoever