The court established that the intention of the accused to commit the alleged acts must be evident, and the continuation of prosecution should be considered in light of the nature and gravity of the offence.

JUDGMENT

G. A. Sanap, J. - Rule. Rule made returnable forthwith. Heard finally by consent of learned Advocates for the parties.

2. The applicant/accused has made this application for quashing the First Information Report bearing Crime No. 520 of 2018, dated 01.10.2018 registered with Gadchandur Police Station, on the report of respondent No.2, for the offence punishable under Section 505(2) of the Indian Penal Code (For short the I.P.C.) and Section 67 of the Information Technology Act, 2000 (For short the I. T. Act) on the following facts.

3. The applicant is using the social media app known as Facebook. On 28.09.2018, he received facebook post on his account uploaded and circulated by one Anuj Bharadwaj. The applicant forwarded and circulated the said facebook post. The respondent No. 2 received the said post on his facebook account. On reading the facebook post, the respondent No.2 formed a reasonable belief that it was intended to hurt the sentiments of Muslim community. The respondent No.2, on 01.10.2018, lodged a report with the respondent No.1-Police Station. On the basis of the facts stated in the report and the contents of the facebook post circulated and forwarded by the applicant, the crime as above came to be registered against the applicant.

4. It is the case of the applicant that he has not committed offence either under Section 505(2) of the I.P.C. or under Section 67 of the I. T. Act. He is not the author of the said post. He has simply forwarded the post. It is his case that before forwarding the post on the facebook account of the others he did not read the same properly. There was a mistake on his part. Besides, it is his case that the facebook post forwarded and circulated is general. It is not intended in any manner to create a tension or enmity between two communities. In the facebook post there was specific reference of Tarik Anwar who hail from Muslim community. It is his case that the fundamental ingredients of Section 505 (2) of the I.P.C. and Section 67 of the I. T. Act have not been made out. On these averments, he has prayed that in order to save him from rigmarole of the criminal trial the FIR in question needs to be quashed.

5. The Investigating Officer has filed the reply and stated therein the progress of the investigation conducted so far. It is stated in the reply that the facts stated in the report, facebook post and the facts discovered during the course of investigation clearly established the commission of the crime by the accused/applicant.

6. The respondent No.2 has filed the reply. Besides reiterating the facts stated in the report, he has contended that when he replied the facebook post circulated by the applicant, the applicant made his stand clear and tendered the apology. It is stated that now the dispute between him and the applicant has been sorted out. He has therefore contended that he would like to give quietus to the present matter as they want to live in the same locality without any grudge against each other. In short, he has contended that accepting his statement in juxta position with the facts stated by the applicant in his application, the application may be allowed, as prayed.

7. We have heard Mr. A.S. Ambatkar, the learned Advocate for the applicant, Ms S. S. Jachak, the learned AGP for the State and Mr V. R. Thote, the learned Advocate for the respondent No.2.

8. The learned Advocate for the applicant took us through the record and particularly the provisions of Section 505(2) of the I.P.C. and Section 67 of the I.T. Act and submitted that the basic ingredients of Section 505(2) of the I.P.C. have not been made out. The learned Advocate submitted that the provisions of Section 67 of the I. T. Act are applicable totally in different context and factual situation. On this point the learned Advocate relied upon the decision in the case of the Bilal Ahmed Kaloo .v/s. State of Andra Pradesh, reported in, 1997 AIR (SC) 3483, wherein, it is held that in order to attract the provisi