Failure to exercise restraint on social media may invite state intervention: Supreme Court

The court was hearing a plea filed by a Kolkata resident, Wazahat Khan, seeking consolidation of FIRs registered against him in different states over his social media posts.

“If they (citizens) want to enjoy the fundamental right of speech and expression, it should be with the reasonable restrictions also. Apart from that, there must be self-restraint and regulation also, to enjoy the valuable freedom, not like this abuse,” said Justice B V Nagarathna.

“One of the fundamental duties is to uphold the unity and integrity of the country. That is being violated. …all these divisive tendencies, at least on social media, must be curbed,” she said.

“But to what extent the state can curb? Instead, why can’t the citizens regulate themselves? Citizens must know the value of freedom of speech and expression. If they don’t, then the state will step in, and who wants the state to step in? Nobody wants the state to step in,” Justice Nagarathna said.

“Article 19 is against the state… verticality; what about horizontality,” she asked.

“We will ask learned senior counsel for the petitioner… and also the state, to assist vis-à-vis the guidelines to be issued to the citizens to comply,” said the bench, which included Justice K V Viswanathan.

“We are not speaking about censorship. But in the interest of fraternity, secularism and dignity of individuals…We will have to go into this beyond this petition,” Justice Nagarathna sought to clarify.

It was on Khan’s complaint that the Kolkata police arrested a law student, Sharmishta Panoli, from Haryana over her social media posts in May. She was later granted bail by the Calcutta High Court.

Later, FIRs were filed against Khan in Assam, Maharashtra, Delhi and Haryana for allegedly posting divisive content on social media. The West Bengal police registered two FIRs against him and arrested him. Khan then approached the SC which, on June 23, directed that no coercive action be taken against him in the FIRs filed against him in other states.

On Monday, Khan’s counsel, Senior Advocate Siddharth Agarwal, submitted that he was not defending the social media posts, but added that he had deleted them and apologised.

Justice Nagarathna said abuse of the freedom of speech can clog the legal system. “This is happening in the country. There is no restraint. Freedom of speech and expression is a very, very important freedom and a fundamental right. If there is abuse of that freedom leading to litigation and clogging of courts… There are other criminal cases the police can attend to instead of chasing these kinds of cases. What is the solution to this… we are not (asking) from the point of view of the state, we are asking from the point of view of citizens,” she said.

“Having an opinion is one thing but to say that in a particular way is an abuse. Sometimes, it will not come in the court in the context of hate speech,” she said.

Justice Nagarathna backed Justice Viswanathan’s remarks that fraternity among citizens would help bring down the hate. “My learned brother rightly said that there should be fraternity between the citizens, then all this hate will come down,” she remarked.

“When citizens react to this by not following… If less and less people follow these kinds of tweets… how do you create this awareness,” Justice Viswanathan said.

“The oxygen of such speech is that people react,” said Agarwal, adding that such awareness can be created by “starting a social movement in the context of identification of hate or other kinds of egregious speech and then doing that social boycott at the very beginning.”

Justice Viswanathan said this was “easier said than done”. “When will people start to find it jarring? All right-minded people. All citizens,” he said.

“It all boils down to awareness. It has already become jarring but people have to realise. That self-reflection has to come,” said the counsel appearing for West Bengal. He said self-regulation may be difficult as social media lacks any editorial oversight.

Posting the matter for hearing after four weeks, the court sought the assistance of the parties to examine the broader questions flagged by it.

In May, another bench of the Supreme Court, while dealing with the case of YouTuber Ranveer Allahabadia, had also flagged the need to regulate social media content without encroaching on the fundamental right to free speech and expression.