The Madras High Court recently overturned a Special NIA court’s decision to refuse to release a Muslim preacher who was charged under the UAPA while citing Wikipedia to determine the purpose and goals of the organisation to which the person in question belonged.
Justice M Sundar and Justice M Nirmal Kumar’s division bench referred to the Supreme Court’s guiding principle which reads, “Wikipedia is based on a crowd-sourced user-generated editing model and therefore is not completely dependable in terms of academic veracity and can promote misleading information.”
The High Court stated that the Supreme Court has warned against using sites like Wikipedia to settle judicial disputes. In light of this, the HC decided that the trial court erred in relying on Wikipedia in this case and that the case needed to be sent to it for consideration de hors Wikipedia.
The high court asked the Special Court to keep in mind this time the caveat put in place by the Top Court in the Acer India case [Commissioner of Customs, Bangalore Vs. M/s.Acer India Pvt. Ltd (2008) and the Hewlett Packard / Lenevo case [HP India Sales Pvt. Ltd., Vs. Commissioner of Customs (Import), Nhava Sheva/Lenevo (India) Pvt. Ltd., Vs. Commissioner of Customs (Import), Nhava Sheva (2023)].
The Sessions Court’s decision for the exclusive trial for bomb blast cases at Poonamallee, in Chennai, was challenged by the accused, Ziyavudeen Baqavi, in a criminal appeal that he recently filed before the high court.
The accused claimed that the Special Court had utilized Wikipedia to make a judgement regarding the purpose and goals of an organisation to which he allegedly belonged while denying his discharge petition, among other illegalities.
According to the counsel for the accused, the Special Court’s order was unlawful since it was based on extraneous material, which is prohibited under Supreme Court precedent.
Ziyavudeen Baqavi is believed to be a member of the ISIS-affiliated Hizb-ut-Tahrir (HuT), an extremist Islamic group. He was detained in February of last year on suspicion of intending to brainwash Tamil Nadu’s Muslim population in order to create an Islamic State.
Sections 120-B, 124-A, 153-A, 153-B, 505(1)(b), 505(1)(C), and 505(2) of the Indian Penal Code, 1860 (IPC), as well as Section 13(1)(b) of the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, 1967 (UAPA), are said to have been flouted by Baqavi.
