S Ve Shekher (Photo: Facebook/File image)
Chennai: The
Madras High Court on Friday refused to quash criminal petitions filed against former MLA and actor
S Ve Shekher for sharing a derogatory Facebook post against women journalists in 2018. Notably, the case was registered against Shekher after he forwarded an abusive and vulgar comment on his Facebook account. The incident took place in April 2018.
Justice Anand Venkatesh quashed Shekher’s petitions to quash a case against him. “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,” Justice Venkatesh stated as quoted by Live Law.
He further added, “If such a caution has been thrown to the winds and as a result, it has had a very serious impact, the petitioner has to necessarily face it and cannot try to run away from the consequences by merely tendering an unconditional apology.”
Notably, Shekher claimed that he had just forwarded the message received from one Mr Thirumalai Sa and did not read the content while posting on his Facebook account. The actor-turned-politician further claimed that he had removed the derogatory post on the same day and tendered an apology. However, the court did not accept his arguments.
“We are now suffering from a
virtual information diarrhoea where everyone is bombarded with messages. Hence, what is exchanged as a message in the social media, can have a very big influence within a short time. That is the reason as to why a person must exercise social responsibility while creating or forwarding a message,” the court observed as reported by Live Law.
“A message that is sent or forwarded in the social media is like an arrow, which has already been shot from the bow. Till that message remains with the sender, it is within his control. Once it is sent, it is like the arrow, which has already been shot and the sender of the message must take the ownership for the consequences of the damage done by that arrow (message),” the court stated. It further added that a person forwarding a
social media message is liable for its content.
The court added that a person should exercise social responsibility while writing or forwarding such messages. The Judge also stated that a person forwarding such ‘derogatory’ messages should also face the consequences.
