The Delhi High Court today excused former interim CBI Director M Nageswara Rao from paying a penalty of Rs 25,000 imposed on him at the time of dismissal of his challenge to the alleged removal of "blue tick" from his Twitter account by the micro-blogging platform.
The retired IPS officer apologised unconditionally to the court and said that he was a pensioner who "was just asking for his identity to be secured".
Waiving the penalty, Justice Yashwant Varma ordered, "Bearing in mind the unconditional apology which is tendered on behalf of the petitioner, the cost in terms of the order of May 17, 2022 shall stand deleted."
In May, the court had dismissed Mr Rao's plea against the removal of the verification tag from his Twitter account while noting that "there was absolutely no justification which warranted the writ petition to be filed bearing in mind that the earlier writ petition was disposed of on April 7."
On April 7, the court had granted liberty to Mr Rao to pursue appropriate remedies with regard to his grievances in case any adverse decision is made by Twitter.
The plea had said that in pursuance to the court's order, he reapplied for the verification tag, however, it was not reinstated.
Mr Rao had claimed that his account on Twitter did contain a blue tick but the same was removed in March 2022.
In his plea, he had also sought directions to the Centre to designate or earmark one or more compliance and grievance officers exclusively to handle complaints from users of social media platforms like Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram relating to compliance to the law and rules, including verification of user identity, so that people are not subjected to unnecessary harassment.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
"Back To Square One": Arvind Kejriwal Wants Interim Bail, Slams CBI Arrest Court Allows 26 Luxury Cars Owned By Conman Sukesh Chandrashekhar To Be Sold Woman Permitted To Terminate 32-Week Pregnancy Due To Health Risk Amid Huge Row, Karnataka Pauses Bill For Reservation In Private Sector Firms Travel Influencer Aanvi Kamdar Dies After Falling Off A Waterfall Near Mumbai BJP Subtly Asking Ajit Pawar To Quit "Mahayuti": Sharad Pawar's NCP 'Friend' Arrested For Making Viral Mumbai Couple's Intimate Videos: Cops UK Covid-19 Inquiry To Issue First Report On Preparedness Secret Service Head To Testify To US House Panel On Trump Shooting Track Latest News Live on NDTV.com and get news updates from India and around the world.