The Supreme Court made it clear to actor and former MLA S. Ve Shekher on Friday, August 18 that a person who mechanically forwards abusive or derogatory social media posts without actually reading or thinking them through is liable to face the consequences, which may extend to criminal action.
A Bench of Justices B.R. Gavai and P.K. Mishra did not seem very impressed when Mr. Shekher, who is accused of sharing a vulgar post about women journalists, said he had applied eye drops and his fingers accidentally touched the ‘send’ button.
“Why do you have to forward social media posts even when you have drops in your eyes,” Justice Gavai asked senior advocate S. Nagamuthu, appearing for Mr. Shekher.
Mr. Nagamuthu said social media had become “essential part of our lives”, and it was hard to ignore it.
“We manage well without social media… we don’t find social media essential in our lives,” Justice Gavai retorted.
The court asked Mr. Nagamuthu his client’s age. The lawyer said Mr. Shekher was 72 years old.
“At that age, is he doing all this? Why do you forward such messages… if you use social media, you should have been more careful,” Justice Gavai said.
The top court refused to interfere with the Madras High Court decision, refusing to quash multiple criminal cases filed against Mr. Shekher.
The Facebook post shared by him date back to April 19, 2018.
The High Court had expressed its reluctance to even translate the post, saying the message was “despicable”, to say the least.
“We live in an era where social media has virtually taken over the lives of every individual in the world. We are now suffering from a virtual information diarrhoea where everyone is bombarded with messages. That is the reason as to why a person must exercise social responsibility while creating or forwarding a message,” the High Court had noted.
