CHENNAI: The Madras high court on Tuesday stayed framing of charges by a trial court against actor S Ve Shekher in a case initiated for forwarding (sharing) in social media a derogatory post against woman journalists.
Granting the interim relief, Justice N Sathish Kumar wondered as to whether the accused was an illiterate to forward such posts without reading that.
The court made the observation since Shekher stated that he had unintentionally forwarded the post of his friend in social media without reading its content.
“How are you saying that you did not read the post. Are you an illiterate? How can you forward a post without even reading it?” the judge asked.
To this, counsel for the petitioner Venkatesh Mahadevan contended that the post had been removed within two hours and a public apology had been tendered by the petitioner.
“Forwarding is also an offence. Tendering an apology may help you during the trial. But can the prosecution be quashed because you have tendered an apology?” Justice Sathish Kumar said.
Representing the prosecution, additional public prosecutor Kritika submitted that forwarding amounted to endorsing the opinion of the message. She added that the prosecution was opposing the petitioner’s plea to quash the criminal proceeding.
In April 2018, following Tamil Nadu governor Banwarilal Purohit’s apology to a woman journalist for patting her cheek without her consent, Shekher shared the message in his social media account degrading woman journalists.
According to the actor, apart from the present criminal proceeding, there were three other private complaints filed against him for the same offence. “All the three private complaints have been stayed by the high court in separate proceedings. Only in the present proceeding the prosecution has filed a final report before the jurisdictional court,” he added.
When the plea came up for hearing, the court directed the prosecution to file a counter and stayed the trial court from framing charges in the case. The court also dispensed with the personal appearance of the petitioner before the trial court and adjourned the hearing to April 16.

 

Original Source