Facebook is under fire after the Karnataka High Court on Wednesday warned the social media giant that it would consider issuing an order to close down its activities in India following the Meta platform’s alleged non-cooperation with the state police over the investigation of a case involving a fake profile.
The warning was issued while the court was hearing a petition submitted by Kavitha in 2021, a resident of Bikarnakatte near Mangaluru in Dakshina Kannada district.
The case pertains to the imprisonment of Kavitha’s husband Shailesh Kumar, 52, who was working in Saudi Arabia for 25 years, while she stayed back in her native place with their children.
In 2019, Kavitha’s husband wrote a message on Facebook backing the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) and National Register of Citizens (NRC). He allegedly received a threat call over this post following which he deleted his account. Subsequently, some unidentified individual(s) created a phoney Facebook account in Kumar’s name and posted objectionable posts against the King of Saudi Arabia and Islam.
As soon as Kumar found out about the fake account, he informed his family. His wife then registered a police complaint in Mangaluru. Following this post, Shailesh was arrested in Saudi Arabia, tried and sentenced to 15 years in jail, reported news agency PTI.
As the police failed to complete the probe on the fraudulent profile, Kavitha moved High Court. Her petition was heard by Justice Krishna S Dixit on Wednesday.
Earlier on June 12, the HC had ordered: “The Commissioner of Police, Mangalore (Mangaluru), is directed to study the case papers and be present before the Court to answer as to why there has been arguably enormous delay in accomplishing the investigation of the matter when a citizen of this country is languishing in a jail of a foreign country after trial and conviction when his specific stand was that his Facebook account was hacked,” reported by news agency PTI.
The police commissioner informed the HC on Wednesday that the investigation has been delayed as Facebook has not cooperated with the police.
Facebook’s counsel informed the court that he had no information about the exact location of the incident. This prompted the HC to issue the warning that the operations of Facebook would have to be ordered to shut down if it did not cooperate with the investigation.
The counsel sought a week’s time to submit the information required. The HC adjourned the hearing to June 22. Meta, Facebook’s parent company, was arraigned as a party to the petition on May 29, 2023.
Kavitha had also written a letter to the Central government to help her in getting Kumar freed.
The HC also ordered the Central government to detail the steps taken to secure the Indian national who has been jailed in a foreign prison in a fake case.
“Union Government should also make a statement based upon records to be given in a sealed cover as to what happened to the concerned citizen; whether he was given lawyer’s assistance on a foreign soil; whether apparently trial proceedings were held with fairness standards as obtaining in the international criminal law,” the HC’s June 12 order read.
The HC also warned the Union government that “if the details as sought are not furnished, the concerned secretary of the Department of Foreign Affairs may be summoned personally before the Court.”
Stating that Facebook is playing with fire, Pavan Duggal, Supreme Court lawyer and Chairman of the International Commission on Cyber Security Law, said, “Facebook has to realise that it is an intermediary under the Information Technology Act 2000. It has offices in India and it is required to comply with the law of the land under the IT Act and rules and regulations made thereafter. So as part of its obligations as a data intermediary, it is required to give information as to who is the exact creator or who is the person who’s been using the particular account .
“More so the account has been misused for criminal or illegal purposes and if Facebook has not been cooperating it is actually playing with fire because non response tantamounts to contravention or violation of the IT Rules 2021. And if they continue to do so under the IT Rules 2021, they not only lose their statutory exemption from legal liability but also become liable for being punished for various offences under the Indian Penal Code and the IT Act 2000,” he explained, adding that Facebook would be well advised to comply with the directive of the HC and give all the details. Otherwise it is going to face a huge string of “legal litigation and exposure”.