HC refuses to quash FIR over ‘anti-national’ posts against PM, RSS

Prayagraj: The Allahabad high court has refused to quash the criminal prosecution against two men, who had allegedly posted ‘anti-national’ and objectionable posts against Prime Minister Narendra Modi and RSS.

Dismissing the petition filed by accused Jubair Ansari and Izahar Alam, who had filed the present petition for quashing of the case as well as the chargesheet filed by the police before a Sonbhadra court last year, Justice Saurabh Srivastava said the allegations against the accused prima facie stand corroborated.

The court observed that the Facebook post attributed to the applicants amounted to a “deliberate and malicious attempt” to outrage religious feelings.

“The conduct of the applicant in depicting the RSS—an organisation rendering services to various sections of society for nearly 100 years—along with the Prime Minister, who is indirectly elected by a majority of citizens exercising their right to vote, on the face of it attracts the relevant penal provisions,” the court said.

The accused are facing charges under various sections of BNS for allegedly promoting enmity in the society and attempting to provoke breach of peace with their statements.

Their counsel argued that the FIR was a result of a malicious intent to harass them. On the other hand, the state said the case should be allowed to proceed before the trial court.

Considering the submissions, the high court at the outset said people on social media sometimes cross the line by uploading posts without understanding the consequences.

“One way, life has become easy and accessible where people can get together and express their views on certain issues. But sometimes social media is misused where people post such comments which hurt the feelings of others and triggers disharmony on a large scale,” the judge said.

The court said while social media can be used to express views and opinions about any issues, the rights should not be misused or overused. It went on to flag instances when social media was misused in the past.

“In 2012, one of the early cases of misuse of social media came to govt’s attention, when morphed pictures and videos of earthquake victims began to go viral on the social media. The miscreants were morphing these images to show that these women were Muslim victims of civil riots in Assam and Burma. This was done to provoke further riots by vested interest and it did bring a reaction,” the court said.

The court added that another drawback of the social media is that adult videos or porn videos are also easily accessible by minors.

The court further said section 196(1)(a) of the BNS is attracted to a Facebook post when the content deliberately promotes enmity, hatred, or ill-will between different groups based on religion, race, place of birth, residence, language, caste or community.

“Under this section, a post can lead to a cognisable offence (meaning police can register an FIR and arrest without a warrant), if it disrupts public harmony,” the court said.

Considering the material on record, the court said it cannot be said that no offence was made out against the accused.

“The assertions of false implication raised by the applicants are factual issues that require proper adjudication by the trial court based on evidence and cannot be conclusively determined in proceedings under section 528 (inherent powers of high court) of BNSS,” the court said in its decision dated April 29.
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