FIR came 30 minutes after police saw the post: Madras HC trims Instagram caste case to 505(2)
Justice R. Vijayakumar of the Madurai Bench held that limitation under Section 468 CrPC stops running when the FIR is registered, quashed the charges under IPC 153 and 504 and Section 67 of the IT Act, and let the probe continue only under IPC 505(2), with prior sanction.
A police constable on social media duty in Ramanathapuram saw an Instagram status at 9 pm on 12 April 2023. By 9.30 pm there was an FIR. More than three years later, with no charge sheet filed, the Madurai Bench of the Madras High Court has held that the half-hour gap defeats a limitation plea.
On 11 November, Justice R. Vijayakumar partly allowed the petition of Mathanvignesh, the sole accused. Three of the four offences in the FIR were quashed. Only IPC 505(2) survives, and the police must finish the probe within three months.
A status posted after a clash
The complainant, Karthikeyan, is a Grade-I Police Constable in the Social Media Cell of the District Police Office, Ramanathapuram. While monitoring social media at about 9 pm on 12 April 2023, he noticed a status on an Instagram account.
The status referred to a clash between the Maravar and Mutharaiyar communities that had only just subsided. It said the Maravars had beaten and chased away the Mutharaiyar group, that one person had died and another was in hospital, and it warned against creating mischief in Ramnad.
It closed by saying that if the other side lived as friends, the poster and his side would too, but that unnecessary acts would bring the same fate. On the constable’s written complaint, a Sub-Inspector at the Cyber Crime Police Station, Ramanathapuram, registered Crime No. 10 of 2023 at 9.30 pm.
The FIR names Mathanvignesh alone. It invokes Sections 153, 504 and 505(2) of the Indian Penal Code and Section 67 of the Information Technology Act, 2008. He moved the Madurai Bench under Section 528 of the BNSS, 2023, to quash it. The judge reserved orders on 4 November.
Four pleas for quashing, one answer
Mr K. Azhagarsamy appeared for the petitioner. He argued that no charge sheet had been filed since the FIR of 12 April 2023, so the three-year limit under Section 468(2) of the Code of Criminal Procedure had run out.
He added that Section 67 of the IT Act needs obscene or lascivious material, which nobody alleged. The ingredients of Sections 153, 504 and 505(2) were also missing, he said, because the status was temporary and vanished after 24 hours.
His last plea was malice. He said the complaint fell within the guidelines in State of Haryana v. Bhajan Lal.
Mr P. Samuel Gunasingh, Additional Public Prosecutor, appeared for the State. He said the FIR was registered within half an hour, so limitation never arose. On merits, the status named two castes, revived a recent clash and taunted one community.
He relied on three Supreme Court rulings: Amritlal v. Shantilal Soni, Ghanshyam Soni v. State and Roma Ahuja v. State.
Limitation stops at the FIR
The court set itself two questions. The first read:
“Whether the FIR is liable to be quashed on the ground of limitation under Section 468 of Cr.P.C.” (para 6)
Section 505(2) of the IPC and Section 67 of the IT Act carry up to three years in prison. Under Sections 468(2)(c) and 468(3) of the CrPC, the limitation period is therefore three years, counted from 12 April 2023 under Section 469.
The petitioner argued that the period ran out because no final report arrived within three years. The court looked to the Constitution Bench in Sarah Mathew v. Institute of Cardio Vascular Diseases. It held that the relevant date is the filing of the complaint or the institution of prosecution, not the date of cognizance.
A fresh argument was that Sarah Mathew governs only private complaints, and that in police cases the date of the final report counts. The court said three later Supreme Court decisions had already answered it.
In Amritlal, the Supreme Court held that the High Court had erred by treating the date of cognizance as decisive. In Ghanshyam Soni, it approved a finding that a complaint lodged within two years and ten months of the offence was in time.
In Roma Ahuja, it held that what matters is the date of initiation of criminal proceedings. That is the day a complaint reaches the Magistrate or an FIR is lodged with the police.
The Supreme Court found a patent error in a High Court order that had quashed an FIR on limitation after looking at the date of cognizance.
Justice Vijayakumar also cited his own court’s ruling in Abiganesh v. State of Tamil Nadu of 29 October 2024. There the FIR was registered on the day of the incident, and the date of the charge sheet was held irrelevant.
Three propositions from the case law
From these decisions the court drew three propositions. A formal complaint to the police within three years, reckoned as Section 469 provides, stops limitation running. The date the FIR is registered is immaterial. And in private complaints the date of cognizance does not matter if the prosecution began within three years.
Here the occurrence was at 9 pm and the FIR was registered at 9.30 pm on the same day. The court held:
“Any delay in filing the charge sheet does not attract the bar” (para 15)
The first point was answered against the petitioner.
Why Sections 67, 504 and 153 fell
On the merits, the court began with Section 67 of the IT Act. It penalises publishing material that is lascivious or appeals to the prurient interest, or that tends to deprave and corrupt.
The FIR does not allege any such material, and the status concerned a clash between two communities. The essential ingredients were wholly absent, and the invocation of the provision could not be sustained.
Section 504 of the IPC was the next to go. The court said the insult must be communicated directly to the person concerned, in person or through a letter or messenger, and the section covers only one-to-one interactions. A post on a social media platform does not meet that test.
It relied on G. Sivarajaboopathi v. State, decided by the same court on 21 January 2022, which dealt with a Facebook post. The court there reasoned that a Facebook page is meant primarily for one’s friends, even though anyone can see it.
The FIR here names no one who was insulted or provoked. The complainant is a constable deputed to monitor social media, and he was not the person insulted. The ingredients of Section 504 were not made out.
Section 153 requires that the accused, maliciously or wantonly, does something illegal that provokes a person, intending or knowing it likely that the provocation will cause rioting. Sivarajaboopathi held that a social media post by itself does not create that situation.
The FIR does not say the status was addressed to a gathering, was posted near an assembly, or was followed by a riot or an attempt at one. It identifies no illegal act apart from the posting itself. The fundamental requirements of Section 153 were absent.
What kept Section 505(2) alive
Section 505(2) penalises making, publishing or circulating a statement or report containing rumour or alarming news that creates or promotes, or is likely to promote, enmity, hatred or ill-will between castes or communities. Intention is essential. The court said the words must be read as a whole, from the standpoint of reasonable, strong-minded, firm and courageous persons.
The status came when the dispute between the two communities had only just subsided. It spoke of one community having beaten and chased away the other, and asserted a death and a person in hospital.
It ended with what could reasonably be read as a warning of the same fate. Read as a whole, the court found those words prima facie capable of promoting enmity.
The petitioner said the closing words were a call for friendship and that the clash and the death were already public. The court said these raise questions of intention and of meaning in the local context, which can be decided only at trial.
The 24-hour life of the status did not help either. The court held:
“Its subsequent deletion from the platform does not undo the publication.” (para 24)
The offence is complete once the statement is made, published or circulated.
Malice, sanction and a three-month clock
The plea of malice failed for want of proof. The complainant is a police constable who acted in the course of official duty, and no personal enmity or motive was alleged against him.
The court also noted that Section 473 of the CrPC excludes the time needed to obtain sanction, which is mandatory for offences under Section 196(1-A). The same section lets a court take cognizance after the limitation period has expired if it is necessary in the interest of justice.
The judge added that his observations are confined to disposing of this petition and must not influence the investigation or the trial.
Order
The Criminal Original Petition is partly allowed and the connected miscellaneous petition is closed. The plea that the proceedings are barred by limitation under Section 468 of the CrPC is rejected.
The FIR in Crime No. 10 of 2023 stands quashed so far as it relates to Sections 153 and 504 of the IPC and Section 67 of the IT Act. It stands, and the investigation proceeds, only for Section 505(2) of the IPC.
The Inspector of Police, Cyber Crime Police Station (CCD-III), Ramanathapuram, must complete the investigation and file a final report before the jurisdictional Magistrate within three months of receiving the order. Any final report for Section 505(2) must be filed only after obtaining the previous sanction required under Section 196(1-A) of the CrPC.
The petitioner may raise all available pleas, including those under Sections 196, 468 and 473 of the CrPC, before the trial court at the appropriate stage.