The present is the criminal application for quashing of proceedings in relation to case registered regarding publication of objectionable article in social media. The applicant no. 1 is journalist and applicant no. 2 is agriculturist and social worker. The FIR has been launched by the PSI attached to cyber cell of police department. In FIR it has been stated that, while going through the social media he found an objectionable article on facebook account. It was published by applicant no. 1 and it was liked and published by applicant no. 2 on his facebook account.
The informant states that, in each para of article the District Superintendent of Police is objectionably referred and question was raised on as to why action was not taken on the incident of assault on journalist and what is the source of amount donated by police. The informant says that, District Superintendent of Police is the highest post in police department and in order to defame the said post and malign the status of police the said article was published. It has created disaffection in general public and police, therefore complaint has been filed.
In investigation most of the statements were recorded are of police constable and not a single general public statement was recorded as to what they felt about the article. It is to be noted that, entire post was not reproduced in the FIR and the copy of same was not given to the accused along with charge sheet. The FIR only highlights those things which informant wanted to highlight. The article is said to be stating the incident took place. The police officer who gave their statements was found that some of them have not even read the article alleged to be defamatory. Court observed that, reading of the post does not found to be creating dissatisfaction among the police and general public. Therefore continuation of the proceedings would amounts to abuse of process of law. Hence FIR quashed.
Sunil Dephe vs. State, Cr.A.no. 437/2015, Aurangabad