In what could turn out to be a landmark case, the Supreme Court of India has said bloggers may face libel and even prosecution for the entire contents of their blog, including user submitted comments.
It started when 19 year old Kerala resident Ajith D started an Orkut community against Shiv Sena that received several anonymous posts leveling certain allegations at the party. The Shiv Sena youth wing registered a criminal complaint, and Ajith was served a summons by a Maharashtra court to appear for the hearing.
Ajith got anticipatory bail from the Kerala High Court and moved the Supreme Court seeking quashing of the case. The Supreme Court rejected the plea stating that Ajith was responsible for all the comments posted on the community and must explain his conduct in the Maharashtra court.
So if you’ve been hoping that the disclaimer – “All comments are views of users” – would save you from a legal tangle, you might want to follow this case very closely.
Find this article at: http://www.labnol.org/india/bloggers-responsible-for-blog-comments/7577/
Tags: blogger, legal, supreme court, India
Reader Comments
ridiculous… do a good deed and get punished :(
Written by awhan on 02.24.09
I am deeply disturbed by these chain of events. This again reminded me of Barkha Dutt’s tirade against one blogger.
Written by Vivek on 02.24.09
Very informative….an eye opener
Written by Ashish Gourav on 02.25.09
1. Does anybody have more details about that Orkut Group ?
2. Is it fair to assume that Ajith & his Lawyer have argued that Orkut needs to submit the server logs of the visitors commenting on the Group to relieve Ajith ?
3. More details on this case and Judgement is highly appreciated.
Thanks.
Written by Chetan on 02.25.09
What the hell?
I mean where’s the freedom? How is a blog owner supposed to be responsible for comments such as this one?
I agree with @awhan: This IS ridiculous.
Written by iChaitanya on 02.25.09
first off.. it was a social networking site.. and the judgment should have mentioned that.
second – it was an open community ( ie non-moderated) , so i particularly dont see the logic of “Admin is responsible for member / anonymous comments
third – the judgment as reported by TOI lashes out on “blogs “, which is most often individually / collectively managed.
Finally, the “officials” who are handling this case ( give any fancy legal term )… do they even know the difference between website / blog / networking message boards / forums
Last but not the least, “If Ajith’s community hurt-public-sentiments “.. isn’t it not fair to say that shiv-sena is hurting sentiments … especially on valentine day.. and other moral policing … who is press charges for that.
Written by Deepa Govind on 02.27.09
It is ridiculous. In the above case another case must be filed against Orkut provider (Google) and another one against the Internet provider and lastly the computer hardware company must be also sued and punished. Because all of them are responsible for giving opportunities to the orkut members to pass comments against the holy Shiv Sena.Taking example of this case the Pink chadi community owner should be also handed still death. What the hell is going on in this country ? If Shiv senna would’ve in USA then today I can best all it’s top politicians would have been given the current chair punishment. The Britishers have not done this to us in 2000 years what out political rascals have done to us in just 50 years. So here the big question is ……..
Written by Royalblogger on 03.24.09
It is ridiculous, but it is India and in India politics have involved in everywhere, Nano car to onion, Chara Ghotla to education. State to state, person to person, Mumbai bomb blast to Mumbai terror attack and now Internet even Blog, social community Orkut. Some time I feel shame that I am an Indian and with our great politicians, finally India is great. :-(
Written by Rahul Gupta on 03.31.09
It happens only in India !! what else can we say mate ??
every has it own rules. Terms and condition of use. If any body posts a comment over and article then its not authors responsibility. its solely commentators responsibility !! where as a blog owner can provide the IP stuff to be clean from the BARs
Written by Abhishek on 04.09.09
It will defiantly hurt those are active in blogging and i think anyone can post comment as anonymous in orkut there is no Admin approval rights, Ya you can bar anonymous posting but i am interesting to know what about if some fake persons with fake profile post comments on your blogs. Is it also punishable ?
Written by Vikas on 04.16.09
Don’t write bull shit on this blog. Amit might get jailed due to your comments. :P
Written by Aayush Shrivastava on 05.04.09