High Court quashes FIR against Elvish

Saurabh Malik

Chandigarh, June 7

Violent content on social media platforms may attract large audiences and appear “cool” or entertaining, but it often perpetuates harmful narratives and glorifies hero culture, leading to negative societal consequences, the Punjab and Haryana High Court has asserted while calling for sensitising “social media influencers” to exhibit socially-responsible behaviour.

Detrimental impact on society

• The judgment is significant as it comes as a stern reminder to the media entities and social influencers to exercise caution and responsibility in the portrayal of violence while emphasising its detrimental impact on societal perceptions and behaviour.
• The FIR in the matter was registered at the Sector 53 police station in Gurugram on March 8. It was alleged that Elvish Yadav and his accomplices met another social influencer and content creator Sagar Thakur in an inebriated condition and started beating him up and hurling abuses.

Justice Anoop Chitkara of the High Court instructed “social influencer” Elvish Yadav and his accomplices to refrain from depicting or promoting violence and substance abuse in their social media posts or content.

The assertion came as Justice Chitkara quashed, on the basis of a compromise, an FIR and all subsequent proceedings against Yadav and other petitioners, while levying a stringent condition against endorsing violence.

“To ensure that similar violent acts are not repeated in the future that impressionable followers do not get influenced by the misdemeanor exhibited by the accused persons and that the accused are not under the mistaken belief that such instances are taken lightly by the legal system, the court proposes to quash the FIR in question but with the imposition of a condition,” Justice Chitkara stated.

The Bench also made it clear that the state of Haryana might seek the orders’ recalling and the FIR’s restoration if they still depicted or promoted violence and substance abuse. The judgment is significant as it comes as a stern reminder to the media entities and social influencers to exercise caution and responsibility in the portrayal of violence while emphasising its detrimental impact on societal perceptions and behaviour.

The observations aim at fostering a more conscientious approach to content creation by urging media figures to act as positive role models for their impressionable followers.

The FIR in the matter was registered at Sector 53 police station in Gurugram on March 8. It was alleged that Yadav and his accomplices met another social influencer and content creator Sagar Thakur in an inebriated condition and started beating him up and hurling abuses.

Justice Chitkara stated that Thakur made a statement before a judicial magistrate that the matter stood settled. But the court could not lose sight of ‘influence’ the social media influencers and content creators were having on the malleable minds of the youth across the country. Justice Chitkara asserted violent content often “served to further a narrative or garner viewership and associated popularity, influencing societal perceptions detrimentally, illustrating a story, and promoting hero culture”. Such “actual use of violence” in a society could not be accepted and was required to be condemned.

Media influencers with a considerable audience were required to be sensitised about the message they imparted to their susceptible followers through their actions and to exhibit socially responsible behaviour,” Justice Chitkara concluded.