The Bombay High Court recently quashed an FIR against a man accused of sharing an “objectionable post” on WhatsApp, saying that not every controversial social media post should be interpreted as an attempt to incite unrest, Livelaw reported.

A division bench of Justices Vibha Kankanwadi and Santosh Chapalgaonkar pronounced the judgement in a plea filed by one Dnyaneshwar Wakale, 34, of Aurangabad, who was booked for forwarding a post against Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar to his friends on WhatsApp in August 2018. Wakale was booked under sections 295-A (outraging religious feelings) and 153-A (promoting enmity between two groups) of the IPC.

While the court quashed the FIR, it also observed that people must exercise self-restraint and avoid sharing unverified messages received on WhatsApp. The court said, “We are aware about the sentiments of the people when such objectionable posts are created and then made viral. The reality in the life nowadays is that there is rampant use of smart phones and the WhatsApp messenger or any such app and the social media but certain persons are not that techno savvy and in such circumstances they will land in trouble on some occasion.”

The judges also noted that the district court had taken cognisance of the chargesheet without proper prior sanction as mandated under Section 196 of the Criminal Procedure Code.

The court said, “The entire charge sheet does not show that there was any such effort to find out as to who was the said member of the group who had made it viral or allowed it to be sent to the person who is not the member of the group.”

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