Raj HC quashes FIR against Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey over pic with Anti-Brahmin poster

PTI, Apr 8, 2020, 11:53 AM IST

Jodhpur: The Rajasthan High Court, on Tuesday, April 7 quashed the FIR filed against Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey and disposed of the plea for his arrest for allegedly hurting the sentiment of the Brahmin community by posting a “highly objectionable” photograph on social media.

“The court did not find the offence made out against Dorsey and said allowing investigation in the matter by police was absolutely uncalled for,” said Dorsey’s counsel Sandeep Kapoor.

Kapoor said that the court observed that the FIR did not disclose “necessary ingredients” of any cognizable offence to warrant its registration and investigation.

The FIR was filed by Raj Kumar Sharma, a Jodhpur resident, through the court in November 2018 alleging that Dorsey hurt the sentiment of the Brahmin community by posting the photograph on Twitter, with a poster in his hand stating “Smash Brahminical Patriarchy” during his India visit.

“By posting the highly objectionable photograph on Twitter, the accused maligned the Brahmin society at large and acted in a manner likely to induce religious hatred towards the community on the whole,” Sharma stated in his complaint.

Allowing the miscellaneous petitions by Dorsey and a journalist, Justice Sandeep Mehta said, “I am of the opinion that allowing investigation in the matter to be continued is absolutely uncalled for.”

Referring to the phrase ascribed as objectionable by the complainant, the court said these words could not be construed as having any direct link with the religious sentiment of any section of society.

“The words in the poster best convey the feelings of the concerned person regarding being strongly opposed to the Brahminical patriarchal system and desirous of denouncing the same,” it said.

Dorsey and the journalist Anna M M Vetticad had moved the court with a criminal miscellaneous petition praying for quashing of the FIR. In December last year, the court did not quash the FIR but stayed the arrest.