The Supreme Court has refused to issue a stay order against the decision of the Immigration Department to deport Canadian citizen Robert Penner on account of his “provocative posts on Twitter that fuelled social discord”. On May 3, the Nepal government had ordered Penner to leave the country within two days. Penner, a principal scientist at Cloud Factory, an IT company, had left Nepal before the hearing of his case.

A divisional bench of Acting Chief Justice Sushila Karki and Justice Devendra Gopal Shrestha concluded that since Penner had already left Nepal there was no need to stay the case.

It is a first case in which a foreigner was deported for tweets. However, Penner had been a vocal critic of the Nepal government’s activities. Penner had argued that the DoI’s decision to revoke his visa was against the provisions of the Constitution of Nepal-2015.

Advocate Dipendra Jha, one of the lawyers of Penner, said that the government attorney produced a document that Penner apparently signed agreeing to leave the country. Jha, however, contested the claim.