The Madras High Court has observed that sharing or forwarding a message in social media is equal to accepting and endorsing the message hence rejected anticipatory bail plea of journalist turned BJP leader S Ve Shekher who allegedly shared a derogatory Facebook post on women journalists.
The court said, “No one has any right to abuse women and if done it is a violation of rights. When calling a person with community name itself is a crime, using such unparliamentarily words is more heinous Words are more powerful than acts, When a celebrity-like person forwards messages like this, the common public will start believe it that this type of things are going on.”
Justice S Ramathilagam said in the order that “What is said is important, but who has said it, is very important in a society because people respect persons for the social status. When a celebrity-like person forwards messages like this, the common public will start believe it that this type of things are going on. This sends a wrong message to the society at a time when we are talking about women empowerment.”
“The language and the words used are not indirect but a direct abusive obscene foul language which is not expected from a person of this calibre and age who claims to be a literate with lot of credential with lot of followers”, he added.
The BJP leader Shekher, in his petition, had said he had received a message from his friend and under the bona fide impression, as the message was from the one who usually forwards good and patriotic messages, he, due to inadvertence by mistake, forwarded the said message without reading the contents and knowing the nature of the said message. Afterwards, the same was pointed out by his friend that the said content was an abusive one, he deleted the same as it was not at all accepted for him and condemn able in nature.
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The court observed that the words are more powerful than acts. The court further observed: “Daily we see young emotional boys getting arrested for doing this type of activities in Social media? Law is same to everyone and people should not lose faith in our judiciary. Mistakes and crimes are not same. Only children can make mistakes which can be pardoned, if the same is done by elderly people, it becomes an offence.”
The Court also observed that no one has any right to abuse women and if done it is a violation of rights. When calling a person with community name itself is a crime, using such unparliamentarily words is more heinous.
“There cannot be any harsher words than this which portraits all working women coming up in life are sacrificing their Chasity. The future of such working women is at stake. Instead of wiping out the wrong impression about working women among the public these words create fear and anxiety among people who want to pursue a career. After seeing these forwarded words from a person who is popular and has lot of connections with media people for long, the public will look at every working women with a suspicious eye.”
The Court also observed that women should be encouraged to come up in life because those words are not just on a single person but against a gender and a women means a family.
“If what is being practiced, no women will come forward to enter into public life. He has only regretted for forwarding but he has not denied what is said in the message. As claimed by him what awareness this message creates in public is?”, asked the court.
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