A fake account created in the name of the newly sworn-in Chief Justice of India Ranjan Gogoi – with the handle name @Ranjan_GogoiCJI – has garnered over 2,000 followers and 11.2k likes at the time of writing.
According to ANI, advocate Gaurav Kumar Bansal on Friday, 5 October, lodged a complaint with the Delhi police regarding the account, claiming that the account could cause confusion among people.
However, a simple search with the hashtag "#NewProfilePic" throws up the actual user's picture from 15 August, presumably before the handle of the account was changed to impersonate the current CJI.
The CJI himself, meanwhile, has no account on Twitter.
The falseness of the account can clearly be mapped via the timeline, which mostly consisted of retweets from several prominent personalities, including Prime Minister Narendra Modi, President Ram Nath Kovind and US President Donald Trump. The account's timeline was also periodically punctuated with generic 'Good Morning' posts, with not more than 10 likes on each post.
However, following the announcement of Ranjan Gogoi as the next CJI on 13 September, an obvious spike in the tweet engagement was recorded. In fact, the account's birthday wish to Prime Minister Narendra Modi saw over 112 likes.
The account also put out a series of tweets about the swearing-in ceremony held on 3 October, including a series of retweets thanking people for their wishes.
The account also tweeted a video of the ceremony.
Another glaring shift is the move towards Twitter posts on legal issues and Supreme Court judgments, following the 6 September SC verdict decriminalising homosexuality. Till then, the account saw almost no activity relating to any judgments or legal issues.
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