Justices Sujoy Paul and Anil Verma while hearing a plea of Sonu Bairwa who was detained on orders from the District Magistrate under the National Security Act, 1980 (NSA) for indulging in black marketing of Remedesivir injections.
The Madhya Pradesh High Court held that not every social media post by a government functionary is necessarily followed in administrative hierarchy.
The Court ruled, hence, a detention order passed by District Magistrate cannot be considered as having passed “under dictate” of the CM unless a clear nexus can be established between the detention order and social media post.
Thus, it was argued that the order of detention passed by District Magistrate amounted to acting under the dictate of the Chief Minister’s social media posts and the order was in furtherance of said posts.
To this, the Court observed:
“The social media posts cannot be equated with an administrative order/instruction. It is not necessary that every social media post of a government functionary is seen/read out and followed in the administrative hierarchy.”
Therefore, the Court concluded that the District Magistrate has used his discretion in accordance with law and no interference of the High Court was warranted.
Lawcutor 