The Gujarat High Court has quashed an FIR registered against a man accused of forwarding an allegedly fake newspaper clipping on WhatsApp, holding that mere forwarding of a message, without any role in creating or publishing it, does not attract offences of forgery or defamation under the Indian Penal Code (IPC).
Justice P. M. Raval allowed the petition under Section 482 CrPC after finding that the allegations, even if accepted in their entirety, failed to disclose the commission of offences under Sections 469 (forgery for harming reputation), 500 (defamation), 501 (printing or engraving defamatory matter), 120B and 114 IPC.
The FIR alleged that fake newspaper clippings and defamatory messages concerning the complainant, a public notary, BSP member and publisher of a magazine, were circulated through WhatsApp. However, the Court noted that the only allegation against the petitioner was that he had forwarded a photograph of a newspaper clipping to another individual, who in turn forwarded it to the complainant. There was no allegation that the petitioner had authored, fabricated, published or widely circulated the purportedly defamatory content.
The Court observed that to invoke Section 469 IPC, the prosecution must establish that the accused forged a document with the intention of harming another’s reputation. Neither the FIR nor the charge sheet contained any material suggesting that the petitioner had forged the newspaper clipping or intended to damage the complainant’s reputation. The investigation had also failed to collect any evidence linking the petitioner to the creation of the alleged fake news.
Significantly, the High Court noted that the editor or publisher of the newspaper from which the clipping allegedly originated had not even been arraigned as accused, further weakening the prosecution’s case against a person whose only alleged act was forwarding the clipping.
On the defamation charges, the Court held that Sections 500 and 501 IPC are non-cognizable offences, and prosecution for such offences must ordinarily be initiated by way of a private complaint before the jurisdictional Magistrate by the aggrieved person. Consequently, the registration of an FIR for these offences was itself legally unsustainable.
Relying on the principles laid down by the Supreme Court in State of Haryana v. Bhajan Lal, AIR 1992 SC 604, the Court held that the case fell within the categories warranting exercise of inherent powers to prevent abuse of the process of law. It concluded that permitting the criminal proceedings to continue against the petitioner would amount to misuse of the criminal justice process.
Accordingly, the High Court quashed the FIR and all consequential proceedings qua the petitioner, while clarifying that the relief was confined to him alone.
