Observing that 'judge bashing has become a favourite pastime for some people', the Andhra Pradesh High Court has directed Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and YouTube to take down abusive contents against judges.
The Court directed the Registrar General to forward the URLs of the derogatory posts to the social media intermediaries, who were directed to pull them down as expeditiously as possible, but not later than a period of 36 hours. The Court also directed that YouTube should block the channel named "Punch Prabhakar", which was posting abusive videos against judges.
A division bench of Chief Justice Prashant Kumar Mishra and Justice Lalitha Kanneganti passed the order in the suo motu contempt case taken by the High Court last year against the abusive and threatening social media posts made by certain members of the ruling party of the Andhra Pradesh against judges of the High Court. The High Court had last year directed the Central Bureau of Investigation to investigate the derogatory social media posts against judges. In the order passed on October 29, the bench expressed dissatisfaction at the progress of CBI investigation, and sought for an affidavit by the CBI Director as to what transpired after December 2020, and the efforts taken by it.