The Supreme Court on Tuesday granted interim protection from coercive action to a cartoonist facing accusations of sharing online objectionable content on Prime Minister Narendra Modi and RSS workers. The top court also expressed anguish over increasing objectionable posts on social media and underscored the need to pass a judicial order to curb the malaise.
A bench comprising Justices Sudhanshu Dhulia and Aravind Kumar, while hearing the plea, voiced concern over the surge in offensive and defamatory content shared across social media platforms. "Log kisi ko bhi, kuch bhi keh dete hain (People say anything to anyone)'," a bench comprising justices Sudhanshu Dhulia and Aravind Kumar said, “we will have to do something about it.”
The bench, in the meantime, protected cartoonist Hemant Malviya against coercive state action in view of the FIR in Madhya Pradesh after his counsel Vrinda Grover assured an apology was tendered. The bench, however, cautioned if the cartoonist continued to post or share any offensive posts on social media, the state was free to take action against him under law.
“The respondent state (Madhya Pradesh) will be at liberty to proceed as per law if the petitioner puts any offensive post on social media,” the bench ordered after additional solicitor general K M Natraj, appearing for the state government, referred to some other posts of Malviya on X against judiciary as well.
“It will open Pandora's box,” Grover retaliated, opposing the submission of the law officer. Grover earlier in the hearing said, “It is a case of poor and bad language. I ask myself whether this is criminal or illegal language.” The bench then remarked, “The issue is the manner in which you said something. What you have done is a clear offence.” The top court referred to one of his tweets and said it could “attract all kinds of penal provisions”.
The bench, in the meantime, did not accede to the cartoonist's plea to delete his social media posts and posted the hearing in August.Malviya challenged in the apex court a Madhya Pradesh High Court order passed on July 3 refusing to grant him anticipatory bail. He was booked by Lasudiya police station in Indore in May on a complaint filed by lawyer and RSS worker Vinay Joshi.
Follow us
