Patna High Court Grants Anticipatory Bail To YouTuber Manish Kashyap Accused of Spreading Sabotage Rumors To Tarnish Railway's Image

A bench of Justice Chandra Shekhar Jha granted him the relief, noting that he had posted the video as it is, after receiving it from social media, for the information of the Ministry of Railway.

Kashyap, booked under Sections 353, 125, 299, 61(2), 196, 3(5) BNS, along with Sections 66 and 66(F) IT Act, has been accused of uploading the video to tarnish the image of Indian Railway.

FIR also alleged that such uploading could "invite the occurrence of sabotage within the railway premises" and that his modus operandi for creating such rumors.

Seeking anticipatory bail, Kashyap moved the HC wherein his counsel submitted that the said clip had been forwarded to him on social media and was uploaded only after tagging the Ministry of Railways so that the authorities can take an appropriate action against the culprits if the same is found to be genuine .

His counsel argued that if the petitioner had any bad intention to spread rumors or to invite any sabotage, he would not have tagged the ministry and would have instead uploaded on Facebook, where he has 5.2 million followers.

According to him, the FIR does not disclose any criminal intent and Kashyap had only exercised his fundamental right qua freedom to speech and expression under Article 19 of the Constitution of India.

State counsel, on the other hand, opposed the bail.

Justice Jha took note of the factual submissions as well as the explanation that the video had been uploaded in the same form in which it was received by the petitioner from social media without any change in its content and that it was posted for the information of the Ministry of Railway.

Considering the material placed before it, the High Court directed that in the event of his arrest or surrender within 4 weeks, Kashyap be released on bail on furnishing a bond of ₹10,000 with two sureties of like amount each.

Advocate Devashish Giri appeared for Kashyap

APP Rita Verma for state