The HC factored in the student’s r young age and her career prospect, among other factors
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. 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. 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, mumbai: The criminal law cannot be set into motion merely.
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. 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 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.