File photo of Madras High Court
The Madras High Court on Friday (August 16, 2024) refused to grant anticipatory bail to an individual who had been booked under the provisions of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS) and the Information Technology Act of 2000 for having shared a blasphemous post against Prophet Muhammad on his Facebook page.
Justice P. Dhanabal dismissed the advance bail plea after Government Advocate (criminal side) S. Santhosh contended that no person could escape prosecution by claiming to have just shared a message authored by someone else by mistake or by claiming to have deleted the post after realising the mistake.
The Government Advocate cited Justice N. Anand Venkatesh’s 2023 judgment in actor S.Ve. Shekher’s case, wherein the court had held that those who share messages on social media must be very cautious and could not be allowed to escape penal consequences for the damage caused before deleting the post.
It was brought to the notice of the court that the petitioner R. Murugesan, 48, of Rathinapuri in Coimbatore, was booked by the Saibaba Colony police on July 20, 2024. The Coimbatore Principal District and Sessions Court had dismissed his anticipatory bail petition on August 8, 2024, after going through the contents of the blasphemous post.
