Twitter doesn't remove Kamra’s SC comments, grilled by Parliament panel

After geo-tagging Ladakh as a part of China, Twitter has found itself caught in a fresh controversy. The micro-blogging site was questioned by a parliamentary panel on Thursday for not removing stand-up comedian Kunal Kamra’s “offensive tweets” targeting the Supreme Court earlier this month.

BJP’s Meenakshi Lekhi and Congress leader Vivek Tankha, both members of the Joint Committee on the Personal Data Protection Bill, grilled Twitter policy head Mahima Kaul on the lapse, sources said.

Kunal Kamra has been accused of contempt of court over his tweets poking fun at the Supreme Court for granting bail to TV anchor Arnab Goswami after his arrest in an abetment to suicide case.

Also read: Twitter apologises to India for showing Leh, Ladakh in China

Mumbai-based Kamra has refused to either retract his tweets or apologise for his posts.  “I don’t intend to retract my tweets or apologise for them. I believe they speak for themselves… No lawyers, no apology, no fine, no waste of space,” he wrote in a Twitter post.

Attorney General KK Venugopal allowed criminal contempt cases against Kamra, stating that “he (Kamra) had crossed the line”.

“It is time that people understand attacking the Supreme Court unjustifiably and brazenly will lead to punishment,” the top law officer had said in a letter.

Also read: Create mechanism for media reporting, SC tells Centre on ‘Tablighi’ petition

In January, Kamra had heckled Arnab Goswami on an IndiGo flight from Mumbai to Lucknow. As a consequence, several airlines banned Kamra from flying.

Some days back, Twitter had geo-tagged Ladakh as a part of China. The company has promised the parliamentary panel that it will be corrected by November 30. Twitter’s chief privacy officer Damien Kieran has already apologised for the mistake that was spotted after users tagged their posts as being in Ladakh, but the geo-tag showed their location in China.