Supreme Court seeks states, Meta response over police posts revealing accused identities

The Supreme Court has sought responses from the Centre, state governments, and social media platforms X and Meta to a petition seeking directions to ensure that police posts on social media revealing the identity of accused individuals or depicting them in a dehumanising manner be taken down. The petition was filed by Hemendra Patel, a Gujarat-based social worker and journalist, through senior advocate Gopal Sankaranarayanan on behalf of the petitioner.

The petition, filed as a Public Interest Litigation (PIL), accuses police departments across various states of creating official pages on social media platforms like Instagram and Facebook and posting obnoxious and degrading content involving accused persons. This content includes physical abuse, public humiliation, parading, and posts showing the accused being subjected to custodial violence, all of which are allegedly done to create a "macho" image of the police and compromise the sanctity of any subsequent Test Identification Parades.

The petition requests the court to direct states to frame appropriate guidelines regulating the use of social media platforms by police organisations, particularly to prevent the upload of such content. It also urges X and Meta to develop policies and user guidelines to ensure that no content revealing the identities of accused persons or depicting them in dehumanising ways is posted on their platforms.

Additionally, the petition seeks a transparent and structured mechanism for the prompt removal of such content upon user reporting.