Allahabad HC’s case discarded by people, likes posts on social media differently than sharing

The Allahabad High Court observed that liking social media posts does not mean transmitting or posting it, and does not attract Section 67 of the Information Technology Act, which involves obscene and offensive material. |Picture source: Getty Images

The Allahabad High Court observed that liking social media posts does not mean transmitting or posting it, and does not attract Section 67 of the Information Technology Act, which involves obscene and offensive material.

The observation was conducted by Justice Saurabh Srivastava when a criminal lawsuit was cancelled against one of Agra.

“Even if, from the recorded material, there seems to be no information that could be provocative, and only the likes the message will not cause a penalties or any other criminal offense.”

The Court is processing an application under CRPC under section 482 (the inherent power of the High Court).

The petitioner has moved to court to seek to revoke the case against him because he likes a post by Chaudhari Farhan Usman.

Usman’s post mentioned a protest gathering that would gather near collectors to hand over the memo to the President of India.

Mr Khan was booked as “provocative information on social media, which resulted in about 600-700 people belonging to the Muslim community arranged a march without permission.” The court revoked the proceedings and observed: “Even Article 67 of the IT Act is obscene material, not for provocative material”.

The court said the words “lustfulness or appeal to powerful interests related to sexual interests and desires” and therefore, the Act of Section 67 does not provide for any punishment for other provocative materials. ”

At the hearing, the applicant’s attorney stated that such content was not found even on his Facebook account. However, police said he had deleted the same content, but found similar content on WhatsApp and other social media platforms.

From the recorded materials, the court found that Mr. Khan only liked a message from another person and did not file a crime against him.

“I heard the applicant’s attorney and read the records carefully, and I couldn’t find any material that could connect the applicant to any offensive position, as there were no offensive positions in Facebook and the applicant’s WhatsApp account,” the court said in an order passed Thursday.