Will order your shutdown if you don’t cooperate in police probe: HC warns Facebook

Karnataka, 16th June 2023: The High Court of Karnataka has told Facebook (Meta) that it may be ordered to shut down its activities in India if it does not help with a police probe into a bogus profile.

Shailesh Kumar, an Indian national from Mangaluru, is being held in Saudi Arabia for reportedly making a disrespectful Facebook post on the country’s king and Islam. His wife, Kavitha, has complained to the local police that the nasty statement was posted on a fake profile of her husband.

The police have failed to conclude their investigation into the phoney profile, causing Kavitha to file a petition with the Supreme Court. Her petition, which was originally filed in 2021, was heard on Wednesday by Justice Krishna S Dixit.

On June 12th the court 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.”

On Wednesday, Mangaluru city police commissioner Kuldeep Kumar Jain and the investigating officer in the case appeared in the High Court.

According to Kavitha’s police complaint, Shailesh has been working in Saudi Arabia for the past 25 years. He’d posted in favour of the Indian Government’s Citizenship Amendment Act and the National Register of Citizenship initiative. He supposedly received a threat call because of this message, so he cancelled his account.

Following that, she claims, some miscreants created a phoney account in his name and posted a disparaging post about the Saudi king and Islam.

Shailesh was detained in Saudi Arabia after this post, tried, and sentenced to 15 years in prison. His wife submitted a police report regarding the phoney profile in her husband’s name based on the information he gave.

On Wednesday, the police commissioner informed the High Court that the inquiry had been postponed because Facebook had refused to assist with the authorities.

When the High Court questioned Facebook’s attorney, the counsel informed the court that he did not know the exact location of the incident. This prompted the High Court to issue a warning that if Facebook did not comply with the investigation, its activities would be ordered to be shut down.

The counsel requested a week to submit the necessary details. The hearing was postponed until June 22 by the High Court, who ordered Facebook to produce a full report on the incident and any relevant evidence. Meta, Facebook’s parent company, was named as a defendant in the petition.