On April 13, Justices M Sundar and M Nirmal Kumar ruled that the Supreme Court had warned lower courts against relying on Wikipedia to settle legal disputes.
In a recent case related to the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA), the Madras High Court overturned a special NIA court’s decision to dismiss a Muslim preacher’s discharge petition based on information from Wikipedia.
The High Court directed the lower court judge to reconsider the plea, but this time using witness testimony and legal evidence instead.
The bench referred to earlier Supreme Court decisions that had deemed user-generated content, such as Wikipedia, to be untrustworthy and therefore inadmissible as evidence in legal dispute resolution.
“Therefore, it is clear that Hon’ble Supreme Court has put in a caveat and caution against use of such sources (Wikipedia) in legal dispute resolution. Acer India and Hewlett Packard / Lenevo principles make it clear that on this score, the trial Court fell in error i.e., fell in error in relying on Wikipedia and, therefore, the matter has to go back to trial Court to consider the matter afresh de hors Wikipedia keeping in mind the caveat put in place by Hon’ble Supreme Court in Acer India as well as Hewlett Packard / Lenevo cases,” the Court said.
According to reports, Ziyavudeen Baqavi was apprehended and accused by the NIA of violating the Indian Penal Code and the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA) for sharing Facebook posts from a “fundamentalist” Islamic organisation’s page.
Baqavi’s counsel claimed that sharing posts did not amount to a breach of Section 13(1)(b) of the UAPA.
In addition, he claimed that the NIA Court had disregarded all of the available evidence and had solely depended on Wikipedia’s definition of the organisation in question to conclude that the UAPA had been broken. The Supreme Court upheld the petitioner’s arguments.
“With regard to reliance on Wikipedia, the submission of learned counsel is indisputable as paragraph 9 of the impugned order of the trial Court explicitly relies on Wikipedia for a definition/description to presume and assume that the objective and aim of a particular entity is as set out therein. We refrain from setting out the same as categoric and certain sole reliance on Wikipedia is indisputable. In this view of the matter, learned Prosecutor really does not have much of a say as it is a matter of record and part of the case file before us,” the Court asserted.
