Mumbai: The criminal law cannot be set into motion merely because a particular publication is perceived to be offensive, unless conduct falls within the prohibition prescribed by law, said Bombay High Court Justice Milind Jadhav and quashed an FIR lodged last year against a Pune engineering student for re-posting of a social media content related to Operation Sindoor. The HC factored in her young age, her career prospects, mere act of reposting content authored by some other person, her arrest to observe that “trial and punishment’’ should be for a reformative result rather than a punitive measure.The FIR against the student discloses no intention to commit the alleged offences, including an act that endangers the sovereignty, unity, and integrity of India under section 152 BNS which attracts life imprisonment.Justice Jadhav said, “A youthful error of judgement cannot automatically be equated with a deliberate criminal act in the absence of material establishing the ingredients of the alleged offences’’ holding that a “mere possibility that a publication may cause displeasure or resentment cannot, by itself, constitute sufficient ground for criminal prosecution.’’The student, who has no criminal antecedents, last year filed a quashing petition and her counsel Farhana Shah argued that the student had “merely re-posted content published online by another person and she wasn’t its author. Shah said, the student reposted the contentious post on May 7, 2025, consciously deleted it within two hours, also publicly expressed remorse and tendered an apology.Amit Palkar, additional public prosecutor said the post was on “war between India and Pakistan fomenting objectionable religious sentiments having communal overtone and may have caused tension and affected public peace.’’Justice Jadhav, analysing the FIR and arguments, observed it appears to be “ an isolated act of re-posting, followed by its voluntary deletion and an expression of remorse probably because of the exuberance of youth.’’ “It is important for me to consider that no actual incident of communal disturbance or other consequential unlawful activity attributable to the applicant’s re-post has been brought to my notice,’’ the HC observed and quashed the FIR against the student.
