The Allahabad High Court has held that liking a social media post does not amount to publishing it or transmitting it, and so, is not liable for punishment under a provision of the Information Technology Act about sharing “obscene” material.

Justice Saurabh Srivastava made the observation on April 17 while dealing with a case of a man named Imran Khan, who was booked under Section 67 of the Information Technology Act, which deals with punishment for electronically publishing or transmitting obscene material.

The case was filed against him after he liked a Facebook post by a man named Chaudhari Farhan Usman, who had referred to a protest gathering that would assemble near the Agra collectorate and hand over a memorandum to the president.

Khan was accused of having “posted certain provocative messages on social media, which resulted in the assembly of about 600-700 persons belonging to the Muslim community for arranging procession without permission”.

The police alleged that his act caused a threat to peace. Apart from the Information Technology Act, the police also booked Khan under sections of the Indian Penal Code related to rioting and unlawful assembly.

Khan’s lawyer said that no such content was found on his Facebook account. The prosecution, on the other hand, claimed that he had deleted the posts in question from Facebook, but the content was available on WhatsApp and other social media platforms.

The judge said that from the material on record, it appeared that Khan had only liked the post in question, and that the Act would not constitute an offence under Section 67 of the Information Technology Act.

The judge also added that Section 67 of the Act applied to obscene content, and not provocative material in general.

“The words ‘lascivious or appeals to the prurient interest’ mean relating to sexual interest and desire, therefore, Section 67 IT Act does not prescribe any punishment for other provocative material.”

No offence was made out against Khan, Srivastava said while quashing the case against him.

“Having heard learned counsel for the applicant and having perused the record, I do not find any material which could connect the applicant with any objectionable post, as there is no offensive post available in the Facebook and Whatsapp accounts of the applicant,” the High Court added.