Vijayawada: Pawan Kalyan has stated that a tweet in one’s Twitter account is one’s own expression of opinions, belief and feelings.
In a reply to Srini Raju’s legal notice on Monday, Mr Pawan Kalyan said he was rather surprised as to why and how Mr Srini Raju has chosen to respond, for a tweet, in no way directed against him.
“There are no insinuations against Mr Srini Raju. In fact, it is Mr Srini Raju’s figment of imagination and may be perhaps a feeling of guilty conscious,” Mr Pawan Kalyan said.
“Society understands that Sri City is of your client and your client is whole and sole of TV9, let alone, with which my tweet had no concern,” Mr Pawan Kalyan said in response to the notice sent by Mr Srini Raju’s lawyers.
“A free expression of my feeling in my Twitter account, which can never, in law, be a cause of action, for anyone either as indicated in your said communication or otherwise,” Pawan said and advised Mr Srini Raju’s advocate to advise him appropriately and accordingly.
When contacted, High Court senior advocate Sarasani Satyam Reddy said that Mr Pawan Kalyan is at liberty to give reply on his own or through his advocate.
“It is up to an individual who got offended with Mr Pawan Kalyan’s tweet to go for further legal proceedings,” Mr Satyam Reddy said, adding that the legality of the case would be decided by a Court of Law.
Lawyers who did not wish to get embroiled in the Pawan Kalyan saga, clarified anonymously, that “defamatory content, in whatever mode disseminated to the public, would att-ract provisions of defamation law in the country.”
They said, “It may be argued that a tweet is a personal opinion and hence cannot be treated to be defamatory, but is not correct, since a tweet is passed on to public upon retweet and is exposed to the public at large. Therefore, if the content of the tweet is defamatory, it cannot be called as exempted from an action of defamation.”
They opined that “in fact it may be very difficult for a person to defend his tweet, since the tweet could be legitimately and authentically sourced to the person who has tweeted.”
