Supreme Law News

Kerala HC Directs Facebook-India To Allow Ex-Judge Account Access To Delete Offensive Post Against Asianet News Editor

Yesterday, the Kerala High Court gave Facebook-India a week to allow former sub-court judge S Sudeep to access his account and remove the abusive post he had made against Sindhu Sooryakumar, the executive editor of Asianet News Network. Facebook-India has been instructed by Justice Mohammed Nias CP to allow the former judge to access his Facebook account and remove the post.

As a result, the fourth respondent is given a week to provide the fifth respondent access so that he can delete the offending post. Once access is granted by the fourth respondent, the learned counsel for the fifth respondent will notify the learned counsel for the fourth respondent, who will then notify the fifth respondent to remove the in question post.

The ex-judge said he couldn't remove the contested post off Facebook because he didn't have access to his account, which is why the court issued the aforementioned temporary injunction.

Prior to this, the Court had ordered Facebook to take down and stop sharing the contested post against Mrs. Sooryakumar. She had filed a complaint against the former judge under the Information Technology Act of 2000's Section 67 (penalty for publishing or distributing obscene information in electronic form) and Section 354 A(1)(iv) IPC (making sexually suggestive remarks). She went to the court to ask for the post to be taken down because she felt it was cyberstalking and was intended to threaten and harass her.

Since the post was only taken down in India and not everywhere, Facebook-India was ordered by the Court to provide an affidavit attesting to their adherence to its ruling.

According to the Facebook-India counsel, the post was taken down from India as per the court's decision. The Court further said that questions regarding its authority to order content blockers like Facebook to stop content globally will be taken into consideration at a later time.

Case Title: Mrs. Sindhu Suryakumar v. State of Kerala and Ors., W.P.(C) No.34989/2023

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( LLM, MBA, (UK), PhD, AIMA, AFAI, PHD Chamber, ICTC, PCI, FCC, DFC, PPL, MNP, BNI, ICJ (UK), WP, (UK), MLE, Harvard Square, London, CT, Blair Singer Institute, (USA), Dip. in International Crime, Leiden University, the Netherlands )

Advocate & Consultant Supreme Court of India, High Courts & Tribunals.