Investigating Agency Cannot Retain Username/Password Of Accused Person's Social Media Platform: Karnataka High Court

The Karnataka High Court has held that an investigating agency cannot retain the username and password of the social media platform of the accused person during the investigation.

The Court said that the investigating agency should download and store the data required from the social media platforms and should give back the changed login credentials to the accused.

"...an investigating agency cannot retain the user name and password of social media/digital platform like Facebook and YouTube pending investigation, the investigation agency can download the data required from such account and thereafter has to give back the changed credentials to the person who owns the said social media", observed a single bench of Justice Suraj Govindraj.

The Court made these observations in the judgment passed in the writ petition filed by Rakesh Shetty, the Managing Director and editor of news channel 'Power TV'.

Shetty had approached the High Court seeking to quash an FIR registered by the Bengaluru police against him after his channel ran a series of reports raising corruption allegations against the family of the Karnataka Chief Minister, B S Yeddyurappa.

He also stated that the City Crime Branch(CCB) had asked him to share the login credentials of his Facebook and YouTube accounts to investigate the extortion case slapped against him following the reports against CM's family. After the username and password were handed over to them, the CCB changed the login credentials of the social media accounts, denying him access to them.

He submitted that access to his personal social media accounts is integral to his day-to-day business as a journalist. 

Agreeing with his submission, the Court observed :

"The Facebook and Youtube accounts are important aspects of the Petitioner's business to carry out his day-to-day business, the Respondent-police cannot on the ground of investigation block the same as as to come in the way of Petitioner carrying out his day-to-day business. For the purpose of investigation only the integrity of the data is required to be preserved and that can be so done by downloading the relevant content from the Facebook and Youtube account of the Petitioner in the presence of the Petitioner after conducting a proper mahazar with help of qualified technical persons. On such downloading, the data downloaded can be kept in safe custody for the purpose of investigation". 

The Court ordered the CCB to handover the new login credentials to the petitioner within 7 days.

The Court also allowed Shetty's prayer seeking the return of the servers, laptops and harddisks seized from his office and residence. 

"It is only the data in such servers which are required for the purpose of verification by investigating agency, the hard disk could always be cloned and after retaining the original hard disk the cloned hard disk along with servers, laptops, etc could always be returned", the Court opined.

"The investigation is not concerned with the equipment as such, but is only concerned with the data stored on such equipment and if the original data is retained by the investigating agency, the interest of justice would be served by returning the equipment with the cloned hard disk/s", it said. 

The Court ordered that the petitioner was at liberty to file an application under Section 451 CrPC before the lower court seeking the return of the electronic equipments.

However, the bench turned down the prayer to quash the FIR stating "it cannot ex-facie be said that the offences alleged against the Petitioner have not been committed".

Case Title : Rakesh Shetty v. State of Karnataka and others [W.P.No.11169 of 2020]

Coram : Justice Suraj Govindraj

Appearances: Senior Advocate A S Ponnanna(for petitioner); Additional Advocate General Dhyan Chinnappa and Senior Advocate CV Nagesh(for complainant).

Click here to download the judgment