Madras HC confirms that S.Ve. Shekher’s conviction and sentence in derogatory Facebook post case

The Madras High Court on Thursday (January 2, 2025) refused to interfere with the conviction and one-month jail term imposed by a trial court in February 2024 against actor S.Ve. Shekher in a case initiated in 2018 for having shared a Facebook post that contained derogatory comments against female journalists.

Justice P. Velmurugan dismissed a criminal review petition filed by the convict in March last year challenging the verdict issued by a special court for MP/MLA cases. However, he ordered the suspension of his sentence for a period of 90 days so that the convicted person could appeal to the Supreme Court.

During the course of arguments on the review petition, the petitioner’s counsel contended that the prosecution had submitted only a screenshot of the alleged Facebook post and failed to prove its authenticity.

The lawyer said the police had also not submitted a certificate under Section 65B of the Information Technology Act to prove the authenticity of the electronic record. However, the judge wondered what was the need for the prosecution to produce such a certificate when the petitioner himself had apologized and urged the court to quash the case filed against him.

Justice Velmurugan noted that while offering the unconditional apology, the petitioner had stated that the message was written by someone else and that he had inadvertently shared it on his Facebook account without reading it properly. “Will you share everything you receive on social networks?” the judge asked the review petitioner’s lawyer.

Justice N. Anand Venkatesh had dismissed the quashing petition in July 2023 after observing that though the petitioner was an educated person and a well-known figure in the state with a large number of followers, a careful reading of the publication of Facebook, which contained abusive and vulgar comments, The comments, shared by him on April 19, 2018, had shown women journalists in a very bad light.

“This court is very hesitant to even translate the message that was sent (shared) by the petitioner since it is, to say the least, despicable. The contents are very derogatory against the press as a whole in Tamil Nadu… A message that is sent or forwarded on social media is like an arrow, which has already been shot from the bow… the sender of the message must bear the consequences,” the judge had said.