Facebook India MD Ajit Mohan moves Supreme Court against Delhi Assembly summons

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Ajit Mohan, vice-president and managing director of Facebook India, moved the Supreme Court against a notice issued by a Delhi Assembly committee that is looking into the social media conglomerate's failure to crack down on hate speech, stating that the matter falls within the exclusive domain of the Union government, reported LiveMint.

The State Assembly committee on peace and harmony, which is probing the Delhi riots, had received complaints on the "role or complicity" of the social media giant's executives, the report said.

Mohan did not heed the first summons, leading to the issuance of a second summons.

The panel, chaired by Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) legislator Raghav Chadha, asked Facebook to ensure that company executives be present at its next meeting, warning that any defiance to the subsequent notice for appearance will be deemed to be an act of "breach of the constitutionally-guaranteed privileges” of the committee.

The firm had previously written a letter to the committee saying that Parliament was already looking into the issue, and asking the panel to withdraw its summons.

The hearing by the Assembly panel started against the backdrop of a Wall Street Journal report that claimed that a senior Facebook India policy executive had intervened in internal communication to stop a permanent ban on a Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) lawmaker from Telangana after he allegedly shared communally-charged posts on the social media platform.

(With inputs from PTI)