The fast track court handling National Herald case on Monday dismissed senior Congress leader Motilal Vora's plea seeking to restrain complainant Subramanian Swamy from tweeting about the case and using "derogatory language" against Congress leaders. Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Samar Vishal rejected the plea of Vora, also an accused in the case, saying there was nothing to show that the tweets caused any damage to the trial of the case, or any prejudice to the court.

Vora, in his application, had alleged that Swamy was trying to influence the court proceedings with his tweets. He also accused Swamy of using derogatory language against Congress leaders Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi often on the social media platform. The court said the tweets cited by Vora "cannot be said to interfere or obstruct the administration of justice nor can be said to prejudice the due course of any judicial proceedings, firstly because no such instance due to which the applicant can say this has either been stated in the application, nor has been put forth in the argument".

"The trial is going on and has reached the stage of evidence, and I am unable to find anything on record nor anything has been put forth to show that these tweets may have caused any damage to the trial or any prejudice to the court," the judge said. It said "a court cannot prohibit any person from reporting the proceedings of a case unless it is shown that the reporting is patently and malafidely false".

"The tweets may not be happily worded from the point of view of the applicant or other accused, but how they interfere in the administration of justice or are prejudicial to the defence of the accused is not clear," the court said, posting cross examination of Swamy in the main case to January 11.