Telangana HC Lays Down Guidelines For FIRs On Social Media Posts

OPINION

- SANJEEV SIROHI

It is most vital to note that while striking the right chord in taking a significant giant step forward, the Telangana High Court at Hyderabad in a most learned, laudable, landmark, logical and latest judgment titled Nalla Balu @ Durgam Shashidhar Goud v. State of Telangana in Criminal Petition Nos. 4905, 4903 & 8416 of 2025 that was pronounced as recently as on 10.09.2025 has laid down key guidelines for the police and Trial Courts to adhere to and follow when handling criminal cases that have been filed for social media posts on politics and political figures/leaders to ensure that such comments are not unduly criminalized in future, which also constitute the backbone of this leading judgment and deserve to be implemented most strictly and in totality. It must be also mentioned here that the Single Judge Bench comprising of Hon'ble Mr Justice N Tukaramji passed the order while quashing three criminal cases that had been filed against the account holder of X (formerly Twitter) handle @Nallabalu over tweets that criticized the Chief Minister A Revanth Reddy-led Congress government in Telangana.

It must be noted that the Bench found that the tweets, though critical, fall squarely within the ambit of legitimate political expression.

We need to note that these most commendable guidelines were issued after the Bench noted that in the present case, defamation proceedings were allowed to be initiated based on complaints by third parties, not the aggrieved person. This undoubtedly violated the fundamental requirements laid down in the procedural criminal law, namely the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita (BNSS), when it came to the prosecution of a person for defamation. It further also found that the mechanical registration of FIRs in this case, without any preliminary inquiry, violated the Supreme Court's binding judgment in the Lalita Kumari case. No denying it!