HIGHLIGHTS
- Admin does not have physical or other authority over a group, thus he cannot regulate or censor postings.
- The petitioner had established the FRIENDS WhatsApp group.
The Kerala High Court has ruled that the administrators or producers of a WhatsApp group cannot be held vicariously accountable for any undesirable information uploaded on it by any of its members. The high court made the decision while dismissing a POCSO case against the administrator of a WhatsApp group, one of whose members had posted child pornography on it.
According to the court, "the sole privilege possessed by the admin of a WhatsApp group over other members is that he may either add or delete any of the members from the group," as maintained by the Bombay and Delhi High Courts.
"He has no physical or other control over what a member of a group posts thereon." He is unable to regulate or filter group messages." "As a result, a Creator or Administrator of a WhatsApp group acting alone in that role cannot be held vicariously accountable for any offensive information shared by a member of the group," the Kerala High Court stated.
In the instant case, the petitioner formed a WhatsApp group named FRIENDS and added two other people as admins to it, one of whom posted a porn film portraying youngsters engaging in sexually explicit behaviour in the group.
As a consequence, police charged that individual - also known as accused no. 1 - with a crime under the Information Technology Act and the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act.
Following that, the petitioner was charged as accused number two, and once the investigation was concluded, a final report was submitted with the trial court.
In his motion to dismiss the proceedings against him, the petitioner stated that even if the whole claims and information gathered are taken at face value, they do not show that he committed any crime.
The high court agreed with the claim and stated, "Nothing on the evidence indicates that the petitioner published, communicated, or caused the claimed obscene material to be published, transmitted, or viewed or downloaded the aforementioned material, or in any way assisted child abuse online. Similarly, the prosecution has no evidence that the petitioner exploited children in any form of media for sexual enjoyment, used them for pornographic purposes, or kept any child pornographic material for commercial purposes." The court also stated that there is no legal basis for holding an administrator of any messaging service accountable for a message made by a group member.
"According to the IT Act, a WhatsApp administrator cannot act as an intermediary. He does not receive or transmit any record, nor does he provide any service in connection with such record.
"There is no master-servant or principal-agent relationship between a WhatsApp group's administrator and its members." "Holding an Admin accountable for a post made by someone else in the group goes against basic principles of criminal law," the court stated.
It further stated that the fundamental elements of the claimed offences "are entirely lacking as against the petitioner" and dismissed the whole proceedings in the case against him.
