KOCHI: Perturbed by the increasing number of social media confrontations using abusive and obscene words, the Kerala High Court has asked the state government to “wake up” and “enact a law” to curtail the same. “If one person posts a defamatory or lascivious comment on social media, others, instead of approaching the police, would respond to the same with more vulgar words. There is no end to it. This is a situation where the rule of law will fail and lead to the emergence of parallel societies which are not concerned about the rule of law. This is a grave situation,” the court observed.
Granting bail to Sreeja Prasad of Pathanamthitta, the anchor of an online news channel on YouTube and Facebook, Justice P V Kunhikrishnan observed: “Some of the abusive and unparliamentary comments may not come within the four corners of Section 67 of the Information Technology Act. In such a situation, the state has to wake up and legislate appropriate enactment to curtail the social media war.”
The prosecution argued that a news item published by Sreeja was lewd and appealing to prurient interest. Hence her act amounts to an offence under Section 67 (punishment for publishing or transmitting obscene material in electronic form) of the IT Act and other offences.
The petitioner’s counsel submitted that she regretted some of the statements in the news item. She made them because she was disturbed after the abusive and sexual language used by different people against her on social media, the counsel argued.