The Kerala High Court has suggested that the State government enact a law to curtail the use of abusive and unparliamentary language during discussions in social media.
Justice P.V. Kunhikrishnan, while granting bail to a woman anchor of an online news channel, observed that “some of the abusive and unparliamentary comments may not come within the four corners of Section 67 of the Information Technology Act. In such situations, the State has to wake up and legislate appropriate enactment to curtail the social media war.”
The court noted that verbal fight on social media platform was increasing. If one person posted a defamatory or lascivious comment on a social media site, instead of approaching the police, others would respond more aggressively in vulgar words. There was no end to it. This was a situation where the rule of law would fail. Parallel societies, which were not concerned about the rule of law, would emerge. This was a grave situation, the court noted.
The court said that it was the duty of the State to maintain public order. Moreover, as per the exiting law, such culprits could be booked, for which the State police should be vigilant.
The prosecution case was that a news item published by Sreeja Prasad, an anchor of an online news channel on YouTube and Facebook, was lascivious. So, her act amounted to an offence under Section 67 of the Information Technology Act.
When the petition came up for hearing, counsel for the petitioner submitted that she regretted about some of the statements in the news item. She made such a statement in response to abusive and sexual languages hurled against her by different people on the social media.
