‘Can’t Permit Such Offences To Flourish’: Allahabad HC Denies Relief To Man Accused Of Making Objectionable FB Post Against Lord Shiva

“Offences of the kind that have a tendency to promote hatred between classes of people or communities, have to be put down with a heavy hand. These offences cannot be permitted to flourish in society by adopting a soft-pedalling approach at the cost of widespread damage to the community,” the bench of Justice JJ Munir observed.

Accused-Asif has been booked under Sections 153-A and 295-A I.P.C. and Section 66 of the Information Technology Act, 2000.

The case against him is that by those comments, he insulted the religious sentiments of the Hindu Community. Further comments fomenting communal hatred by the other co-accused were made in the comments section of the Facebook Account.

The counsel for the accused argued that the alleged comments posted on the applicant's Facebook were mere forwards by another Anjali Singh and that the comments were not made under the applicant's authorship.

To this, the Court observed that if there is a comment which has the tendency to promote enmity between different groups, on the ground of religion posting it on one's Facebook, would certainly constitute an offence.

“The words employed in the post clearly are made with the deliberate and malicious intention of outraging the religious feelings of a particular section of the community or a class of citizens of the country,” the Court added.

Lastly, the Court observed that even if the said comments have been endorsed by the applicant by posting them on his Facebook, it doesn’t matter whether he is the author or the exponent of the comments.

With this, the Section 482 CrPC plea was dismissed.