KATHMANDU, Feb 23: In a startling revelation, it has come to light that the X (formerly Twitter) handle opened in the name of Chief Justice (CJ) Prakash Man Singh Raut has turned out to be a fake account instead of his account being hacked, as believed earlier. The Supreme Court (SC) has stated that the CJ has no knowledge of the account, let alone using it previously.
Publishing a press release on Sunday, the SC has expressed concerns over the opening of the account – Mr. Prakash Nepal (@SupremeCourtNP) – with the profile photo of CJ Raut. Deputy Registrar of the SC Navin Kumar Yadav issued the statement requesting the general public to not pay heed to the information disseminated by the account as it attempts to mislead the people about the court.
“The Supreme Court requests the public not to believe the false content mentioned in the tweet as it has attempted to diminish the dignity and prestige of the court and to create confusion about the judiciary by using fake accounts and tweeting and sharing false and misleading content that have not been approved by the Chief Justice,” the statement said.
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People easily fall prey to the fake handle as it uses a photo of CJ Raut as the profile picture and has already received a grey verification which is given to verified organizations by X. As a result, tweets posted by the account have been shared more than 1000 times in total. The first tweet from the handle was published late night at 11:37 pm on February 13 whereby it claimed to be the official handle of the Supreme Court and stated that it will publish all the official information about the court.
Up until Saturday, the handle posted tweets relevant to the SC and the government with the last relevant tweet about Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli at 5:13 pm on Saturday. However, the account drew the attention of the public as it started promoting cryptocurrency from 7:05 pm on Saturday.
Since that post, the handle has posted seven tweets to mislead the public about a cryptocurrency $NEPAL which it has claimed to be a ‘nation token’ which has been approved by the government. Its latest tweet at 4:45 pm on Sunday announces that the token will be launched at 18:00 UTC on Monday.
The SC’s press release also states that the apex judicial body of the country has also directed the police to investigate the matter. “Necessary instructions have been given to the investigating agency to immediately remove such false and misleading content and to bring the person(s) who tweeted the content to justice as soon as possible," the statement said.
Spokesperson for the SC Achyut Kuinkel told Republica that the SC took notice of the fake account on Sunday morning and immediately instructed the police to take action against the creators of the fake account.
Superintendent of Police (SP) Deepak Raj Awasthi at the Cyber Bureau of the Nepal Police informed Republica that the police have already initiated an investigation into the matter.
“It is illegal to both create a fake account impersonating a public official, and to promote cryptocurrency as such digital tokens are banned in Nepal,” he said, “Since Sunday morning, we have been investigating the case by working with the social media platform.”
