Calcutta High Court Quashes Case Against Man Accused Of 'Mocking' CM Mamata Banerjee, Other Leaders On YouTube

The Calcutta High Court has quashed criminal cases against a man who was accused of making derogatory remarks and mocking West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee and other political leaders on social media platform YouTube.

In quashing the case, Justice Ajay Kumar Gupta held:

"After careful scrutiny of the materials available in the case diary, this Court does not find any sufficient or cogent evidence or even prima facie case against the present petitioner. Mere filing of charge sheet without any material or shaky evidence would not suffice the purpose of continuing trial against the Petitioner. Even if, for the sake of argument, if the proceeding is continued, the possibility of conviction of petitioner appears bleak and remote and as such the continuation of the criminal proceedings would put the accused to great oppression and prejudice. Therefore, the continuation of the criminal proceedings would not be justifiable and to secure the ends of justice, the proceeding is deserved to be quashed."

The present Criminal Revisional application had been filed by the petitioner/accused under Section 482 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973 seeking for quashing of the proceedings arising out of a complaint alleging that in 2022, the present petitioner entered into a criminal conspiracy with other persons and broadcasted derogatory speech on 'YouTube' against the Chief Minister of the State of West Bengal and mocked her and other political leaders with 'sole intent to malign people and provoke breach of peace by endangering social harmony within the society.'

According to the petitioner, he is completely innocent and in no way involved with the alleged offence. He has been falsely implicated into this case though he has no role in the commission of the alleged offence. The criminal proceedings are manifestly attended with a mala fide intention with an ulterior motive for wreaking vengeance on the petitioner. Therefore, according to him, the proceedings, if allowed to be continued, it would be a sheer abuse of the process of law and also cause great harassment to the petitioner.

It was further submitted that the Investigating Officer, without proper investigation, mechanically filed Charge Sheet on the basis of table work as this case is related to the derogatory speech against the Chief Minister, though no sufficient prima facie materials were available.

It was submitted that the trial Court, without applying its judicious mind or looking into the prima facie case, took cognizance on the mere submission of charge sheet by the Investigating Officer.

Counsel appearing on behalf of the State submitted that during the investigation, sufficient materials were collected against the petitioner to establish a prima facie case under Sections 153/500/501/509/505/120B of the Indian Penal Code, 1860.

It was further submitted that the petitioner was involved in broadcasting derogatory video and speech on the social media platform YouTube against the Chief Minister of the State and mocked her and other political leaders with sole intent to malign.

Findings of the court

Court noted that though the allegations were serious in the backdrop of the 2021 assembly elections, the investigating officer could not collect any clips of the same and relied on witness statements while filing the charge sheet.

From the entire case records, this Court does not find the mobile was sent for expert opinion to ascertain that the same gadget was used for broadcasting of alleged derogatory video or speech with sole intent to malign people and provoke breach of peace by endangering social harmony within the society. Furthermore, no data of video clips or speech was retrieved from the YouTube channel to substantiate at least prima facie allegations made by the complainant, the court noted.

Accordingly, in noting the well-settled position of the Supreme Court on this issue, the court noted the lack of evidence in the chargsheet and quashed the case against the petitioner.

Case: Sourav Paul Versus State of West Bengal & Another

Case No: C.R.R. 2581 of 2023

Click here to read order