Supreme Court Refuses To Interfere With HC Order Holding That Person Forwarding Social Media Message Is Liable For Its Contents

The Supreme Court on Friday (18.05.2023) refused to entertain an appeal against the order of the Madras High Court that refused to quash batch of criminal proceedings initiated against actor and BJP politician S.Ve Sheker for his derogatory remarks against women journalists. The cases were registered after Sheker had allegedly forwarded an abusive, derogatory and vulgar comment on his Facebook account in April 2018. The High Court had said that persons forwarding social media messages are liable for its contents. 

However, the division bench of Justice B R Gavai and Justice Prashant Kumar Mishra directed that his request to be exempted from personal appearance may be considered by the Trial Court:  

"Learned counsel for the petitioner requests for exemption of personal appearance of the petitioner. We find that such a request can be made before the Trial Court, which should be considered in accordance with law."

The Madras High Court had noted that Shekher was a person of high stature with many followers and he ought to have exercised more caution while forwarding messages.

Though Shekher claimed that he had merely forwarded the message received from another person without reading its contents, and had later removed the derogatory post on the same day and offered apologies, the High Court had noted that these acts would not help Shekher from facing consequences for forwarding a derogatory message.

The High Court added that a person forwarding a message must be construed to acknowledge the contents of the message. The court said that when a person got a dopamine high by looking at the likes for the forwarded message, he should be equally prepared to face the consequence, if that message had derogatory content.

"A person, who forwards the message, must be construed to acknowledge the contents of the message and that is the main reason as to why he forwards that message to others. In other words, the recipient of a message, who wants others also to know about that message, forwards that message to others. Once that is done, he has to take the responsibility for having forwarded the message to others. A person, who gets a dopamine high by looking at the likes for the message forwarded by him, must also be equally prepared to face the consequence, if that message has a derogatory content"

The High Court added that we live in an era where social media has virtually taken over every individual’s life where each message can reach the nook and corner of the world in no time. The High Court had added that we were no suffering from “virtual diarrhoea” where we were bombarded with messages. Thus, the High Court added that every person must exercise social responsibility while creating or forwarding a message.

“We are now suffering from a virtual information diarrhoea where everyone is bombarded with messages. Hence, what is exchanged as a message in the social media, can have a very big influence within a short time. That is the reason as to why a person must exercise social responsibility while creating or forwarding a message. This is more so when the person concerned, by virtue of his position, can really influence the minds of the general public. A message sent/forwarded becomes a permanent evidence and it is almost impossible to wriggle out of the consequence that falls out by sending or forwarding a message,” the High Court had observed.

The High Court had observed that Shekher’s apology could not be acted upon and the criminal proceedings against him could not be quashed on that ground alone. With respect to Shekher’s submission that he had forwarded the messages inadvertently, the High Court noted that the same had to be established during the course of the trial. Thus, the High Court had refused to quash the proceedings against Shekher and dismissed the petition. However, noting that Shekher could not be made to move from one court to another to face proceedings on the very same cause of action, the High Court had transferred all the criminal proceedings to the Special Court, Singaravelar Maligai.

Case Title: S. VE. SHEKHER V. AI GOPALSAMY, Special Leave to Appeal (Crl.) No(s). 9522- 9525/2023

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