Supreme Court seeks states, Meta response over police posts revealing accused identities

Issuing the notice, CJI Kant said “a regulatory regime has to be there”.

Sankaranarayanan pointed out that though some High Courts (HCs) had passed directions in this regard, more needed to be done.

The petition said that “police departments of various States, having created official pages/handles on social media platforms such as Instagram and Facebook are posting audio-visual content involving accused persons, which is obnoxious and unimaginable in a democratic society”.

It pointed out that the content would be either “physical abuse” wherein “accused persons are shown as handcuffed, tied with ropes, being beaten with sticks, kneeling on the floor, being dragged or pulled down a flight of stairs, etc., by the police officials”, or “public humiliation”, the accused being shown as “being paraded in public… or after clearly having been subjected to custodial violence, such that they are unable to walk properly due to pain”.

The PIL further said “the faces and identities of accused persons are clearly visible in most of the audio-visual content being posted by various police departments” and “these videos/posts/reels are accompanied with background music to provide a heroic effect and depict a ‘macho’ image of the police, which is nothing short of a media trial and completely compromises the sanctity of any Test Identification Parade that might subsequently take place, along with interfering with the administration of justice”.

It also pointed out that the HCs of Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Punjab & Haryana, and Rajasthan have already taken cognisance of such actions by the police and passed certain directions to frame guidelines but this has not been done till date.

It urged the court to direct States “to frame appropriate guidelines regulating the use of social media platforms by their respective police organisations, particularly to prevent the upload of any such content which reveals the faces/identities of accused persons and/or depict them in a dehumanising manner”.

The petition sought directions to X and Meta “to frame appropriate policies and user guidelines for its social media platforms, i.e. Instagram and Facebook, to ensure that no content is posted on their platforms which reveals the identities of persons accused of an offence and/or depicts accused persons being subjected to inhuman/derogatory/dehumanising treatment (including, but not limited to, violence), and where such content has already been posted, to install a formal, transparent and structured mechanism for the prompt taking down of such content upon user reporting”.