Twitter’s love-hate relationship with the Indian government turned a new chapter on Friday. The InfoTech Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad’s account got blocked for an hour who criticized the microblogging website for penalizing him for telling the US company to follow Indian laws. A parliamentary committee head and Congress leader Shashi Tharoor joined issues with the Minister tweeting he’d question Twitter on the issue.

Prasad said on Koo, a domestic rival to Twitter, that the company had denied access on the grounds he had violated the U.S. Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). His account was subsequently restored access even as the Minister later put out his anger on Twitter.

“Twitter’s actions indicate that they are not the harbinger of free speech that they claim to be but are only interested in running their own agenda, with the threat that if you do not tow the line they draw, they will arbitrarily remove you from their platform. No matter what any platform does they will have to abide by the new IT Rules fully and there shall be no compromise on that,” Prasad tweeted.

Friends! Something highly peculiar happened today. Twitter denied access to my account for almost an hour on the alleged ground that there was a violation of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act of the USA and subsequently they allowed me to access the account. pic.twitter.com/WspPmor9Su

— Ravi Shankar Prasad (@rsprasad) June 25, 2021

According to a Reuters news dispatch from New Delhi, Prasad said Twitter had violated India’s new IT rules, which became effective in May and mandate that an intermediary or a host of user content must inform a user of the grounds for its action.

The rules also say that a user must be “provided with an adequate and reasonable opportunity to dispute the action” taken by an intermediary.

It was not immediately clear which of Prasad’s posts violated the DMCA.

Twitter confirmed that access to Prasad’s account was temporarily restricted because of a DMCA notice and that a tweet was withheld.

“Per our copyright policy, we respond to valid copyright complaints sent to us by a copyright owner or their authorized representatives,” a Twitter spokesperson said. But it’s not clear who was the complainant.

Twitter has withheld more than one million Tweets between January and June 2020 for violation of DMCA, according to the company’s transparency report, Reuters stated.

The dispute over the Minister’s account comes as India’s federal government and Twitter are wrangling over non-compliance with the new IT rules.

In a separate case, police summoned Twitter’s India head Manish Maheshwari earlier this month for failing to stop the spread of a video that allegedly incited religious discord. On Thursday, a Karnataka State court gave Maheshwari relief in that case, saying police can question the executive virtually.

Prasad has previously criticised Twitter over the viral video, saying its failure to act was “perplexing”.

On Friday, Prasad reiterated that all social media firms must abide by the new IT rules, which also mandate the appointment of new compliance executives.

Meanwhile, other media reports indicated that India’s Parliamentary Standing Committee on Information Technology chairman and Congress MP Shashi Tharoor waded into the Prasad-Twitter Friday wrangle by saying he too was subjected to the DMCA law and that his panel would examine Twitter on this issue.

Tharoor tweeted: “Raviji, the same thing just happened to me. Clearly DMCA is getting hyperactive. This tweet has been deleted by @Twitter because its video includes the copyrighted BoneyM song Rasputin.”

He further added: “As Chairman of the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Information Technology, I can state that we will be seeking an explanation from @TwitterIndia for the locking of ‪@rsprasad’s & my accounts & the rules & procedures they follow while operating in India.”