Supreme Court sides with Madras HC: Person forwarding social media messages liable for contents

The Supreme Court refused to entertain an appeal challenging Madras High Court’s order that stated that individuals forwarding messages on social media are liable for its contents. The order was in connection with a batch of criminal proceedings against BJP politician S Ve Shekher for his remarks against women journalists. He had allegedly forwarded derogatory comments on his Facebook account in 2018. 

The Madras High Court had noted that Shekher was a person of high stature and had many followers. It stated that he should have exercised more caution when forwarding messages, according to a report in LiveLaw. 

Shekher argued that he forwarded the message without reading it, but removed it later on. He also offered apologies. The high court stated that that does not help Shekher from facing the consequences. 

It must be construed that the person who sent the message acknowledged its contents, the court said. If the person forwarding the messages got a dopamine high then he or she should be ready to face the consequences too. 

"The recipient of a message, who wants others also to know about that message, forwards that message to others. Once that is done, he has to take the responsibility for having forwarded the message to others. 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,” said the court, as per the report. 

The Madras High Court stated that every person must exercise social responsibility while creating or forwarding a message. 

The court observed that the criminal proceedings against him could not be quashed. As for the argument that Shekher forwarded the messages inadvertently, the court said that the same had to be established during the course of the trial.

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