Read Time: 06 minutes

Synopsis

The Madras High Court has recently refused to quash cases registered against politician S.Ve. Shekher for circulating derogatory remarks against women journalists on his Facebook account in April 2018.

The bench of Justice N Anand Venkatesh noted that the contents of the message that was forwarded from Sheker's Facebook account were despicable and its contents were also highly derogatory against the Press as a whole.

Court refuted the argument of Sheker that he had merely forwarded the message inadvertently without properly reading the message and the author of the same was a USA resident. 

While highlighting that Sheker had almost 5000 followers on his Facebook account and was a public figure, court emphasised that he had to be more responsible while giving statements or forwarding messages.

"The more a person is popular in the society, he also carries more responsibility in what he conveys to the society. The petitioner, in the instant case, falls under the category of a person of high stature with many followers and he ought to have exercised more caution before forwarding the message from his facebook account," said the court. 

Court held that Shekher's act had had a very serious impact, therefore, he could not run away from the consequences.

"A message that is sent or forwarded in the social media is like an arrow, which has already been shot from the bow...Once the damage is done, it will become very difficult to wriggle out of the same by issuing an apology statement," court noted. 

Court added that:

"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."

While noting that prima facie, the offence under Section 504, 505(1)(c), 509 of the IPC and Section 4 of the Tamil Nadu Prohibition of Harassment of Women Act, 2002 were made out in the present case, and the matter did not pertain to a dispute between two individuals rather in the concerned message, the entire press and more particularly the women reporters had been painted with vulgar comments, court refused to accept Shekher's unconditional apology. 

Moreover, court held that whether Shekher had forwarded the message inadvertently or not, was a matter for evidence and such a defence had to be established by him only during the course of trial. 

Therefore, court refused to interfere with the criminal proceedings initiated against Shekher. 

Further, court transfer the proceedings in all the cases against Shekher pertaining to his Facebook message to the court of the Assistant Sessions Court, Additional Special Court for Trial of Cases relating to MPs and MLAs, Singaravelar Maligai, Chennai. 

Case Title: S.Ve.Shekher v. Al.Gopalsamy, President, Nellaipathirikaiyalar Mantram, Tirunelveli and Others