LUCKNOW: Dismissing a plea seeking for withdrawal of FIR and chargesheet filed over alleged 'questionable' social media posts on Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the RSS, the Allahabad High Court claimed that the applicants’ posts amounted to a “deliberate and malicious attempt” to outrage religious feelings.
Justice Saurabh Srivastava was hearing a petition filed by one Jubair Ansari and others, who had sought to quash the case lodged against them in Sonbhadra district last year under Sections 353(2) (spreading false news or rumours encouraging violence/hatred based on religion), 196(1)(a) (promoting enmity based on religion), 3(5) (acts done with common intention), 352 (provoking breach of peace) and 351(2) (criminal intimidation) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS).
Justice Srivastava in his order dated April 29, 2026 said that, on the face of it, the conduct of the applicant in depicting the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) and the Prime Minister appeared malicious.
According to the FIR, police had lodged the case against Sabbir Ansari, Jubair Ansari and Izahar Alam alleging they posted anti-national and objectionable posts against the PM with derogatory remarks.
The posts were shared and circulated from the Facebook account of a Pakistani YouTuber, it was alleged.
The petitioners, through their counsel Deepak Kumar Singh, Shishir Kumar and Vinanjay Kumar Patel, contended that no specific date and time of the alleged incident was mentioned in the FIR, which the police lodged with mala fide intention and ulterior motive.
They claimed that the FIR was vague and without substantial evidence. They insisted that it was a malicious intent to harass them. It was also submitted that the magistrate issued the summons taking cognisance of the chargesheet “in a mechanical manner without judicial inquiry”.
Meanwhile, contesting the claims of the petitioners, Additional Government Advocate submitted that the entire argument made at the behest of the applicants was subject to trial and could not be adjudicated at this stage.
Noting “misuse of social media these days”, the court observed that people invariably post information and express their opinion freely and openly on social media.
The court also said that the line was crossed when such information was posted without understanding the consequence of such instances. “Sometimes the social media is misused where people post such comments which hurt the feelings of others and trigger disharmony on a large scale,” observed Justice Srivastava.
He added that social media was actually to express the views and opinions about issues. Such rights should not be misused or overused. It is a duty or responsibility of every individual towards the society before posting anything in such social networking sites.
“In 2012, one of the early cases of misuse of social media came to the Government’s attention, when morphed pictures and videos of earthquake victims began to go viral on the Social Media. Miscreants were morphing these images to show that these women were Muslim victims of civil riots in Assam and Burma. This was done to provoke further riots by vested interest and it did bring a reaction,” stated the court.
“At this stage it cannot be said that no offence is made out against the applicants. The assertions of false implication raised by the applicants are factual issues that require proper adjudication by the trial court based on evidence. In proceeding u/s 528 BNSS, this Court is not inclined to hold a mini-trial. There is hardly any infirmity in the order dated November 15, 2025 passed by Additional Civil Judge, Sonbhadra and as such no case of seeking interface by this court is made out by counsel for applicants. In view of the foregoing, the application is devoid of merits and is accordingly dismissed,” the order read.
