[Clubhouse App bail order] A law student has more responsibility than other citizens: Mumbai court

Irresponsible use of social media is becoming rampant and people belonging to younger generation are insulting members of society from every corner of social life, a Mumbai Court observed on Thursday while directing the first bail recipient in the Clubhouse App case Yashkumar Parashar to undergo counselling as a bail condition..Interestingly, the Court opined that being a law student, Kumar has more responsibility on his shoulders in comparison to the other citizens."Being law student, there is more heavier responsibility on his shoulders as compared to other citizens. He must understand the fact that everybody is duty bound to respect the dignity and privacy of others and everybody must behave responsible in every aspect of social life" the Magistrate said.The Metropolitan Magistrate at Bandra, Komalsing Rajput had granted bail to Kumar on February 1, 2022 but the detailed order was made available to the lawyer today.Besides the regular conditions imposed such as furnishing of bail bond of ₹30,000 with sureties and co-operating with investigation, the Magistrate also ordered Kumar to undergo counselling for "general social behaviour and following etiquettes" and submit a report about his counselling sessions preferably within a month..The Magistrate observed that in many such cases, it was found that irresponsible use of social media was getting rampant and emphasized on devoting immediate attention to this issue failing which the situation could go out of control."The people and particularly young generation in their teenage ignoring etiquettes and mannerism insulting every member of society and every corner of social life, including religion, race, gender, etc. etc. The immediate attention towards this aspect is necessary unless there will be havoc and situation may go out of control as everybody across world have access to it and majority of them may attempt to react on their own way ignoring the social norms and morality," the order said..With these observations, the Court proceeded to grant bail while imposing conditions on the "unbridled and uncontrolled aspect of social life called social media at lease to the extent of the accused"..The Court also remarked that the manner of collection of evidence and methodology employed for investigation was not catching up with time."This Court is repeatedly coming across such incidents wherein allegations are serious, but there is tremendous apathy on the part of investigating agency. Such a conduct on the part of the investigating agency cannot be defended." the order stated..Parashar along with two other accused, Jaishnav Kakkar and Aakash Suyal, all residents from Haryana, were arrested by Mumbai Police based on a complaint by two women who claimed they were defamed after their images had been discussed by several persons in the chatroom of the Clubhouse mobile application..The alleged incident took place in October and November 2021 when the photos of the complainants were uploaded on the app and derogatory and objectionable remarks were made about them.Their complaint stated that at one point there were talks about auctioning their private parts.Based on this complaint, the Mumbai Police had registered FIR under provisions of the Indian Penal Code along with the Information Technology Act..Parashar was represented by advocate Gayatri Gokhale.[Read Order]