Delhi High Court ordered reinstatement

The Delhi High Court on Tuesday directed the restoration of the X (formerly Twitter) account of satirical social media group, Cockroach Janata Party, after the Center informed the court that it now has no objection to restoring the account.

Justice Swarn Kanta Sharma allowed the petition filed by the group’s founder Abhijit Dupke and quashed the government’s stay order.

The court said the Centre’s initial apprehension that posts from the account might create confusion among students and parents during the National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test (NEET) is no longer an issue as the examination process is over.

Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, appearing for the Central government, said the account was blocked to prevent any possible disruption during the conduct of the medical entrance examination.

He said that the government has no objection to restoring the account after the examination is over.

Taking note of the Centre’s stand, the court held that the basis for the blocking order no longer survives and ordered unblocking of the account.

The case was earlier referred to the review committee of the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology, where the court allowed Deepke to participate in the proceedings through virtual mode.

The Cockroach Janata Party emerged as a satirical online campaign following comments made by the Chief Justice of India during a court hearing, in which he called some unemployed youth involved in online activism “cockroaches”.

The Chief Justice later clarified that his comments were directed at individuals holding fake degrees.

The group’s social media accounts, which immediately attracted millions of followers, were later suspended.