Bulli Bai case: Mumbai court discharges Vishal Jha, says following app not an offence

A Mumbai court has discharged Vishal Sudhirkumar Jha from the Bulli Bai app case, holding that merely following the application or remaining in contact with co-accused did not establish his involvement in the alleged offences.

The order, passed on October 6 by Bandra judicial magistrate R T Ingle, marks the first discharge in the prominent cybercrime case.

The case relates to a GitHub-hosted application that displayed photographs of more than 100 Muslim women and presented them as being available for an online auction. Mumbai Cyber Police had registered the case in January 2022 after a woman found her photograph on the application.

Jha was among those accused of being involved in the case. The prosecution alleged that he was in contact with the other accused, followed the Bulli Bai application and shared it through his Twitter account.

Jha sought discharge, arguing that the chargesheet did not disclose any offence against him and that there was no material establishing his direct involvement in creating or circulating the application.

The court accepted the defence contention, noting that the chargesheet did not show that Jha had created the application, helped in creating it or supplied photographs to alleged creator Niraj Bishnoi.

"May be the applicant has followed Bullibai App due to his familiarity with the co-accused and contact with them, but, in entire charge-sheet there is no further role of the present applicant which would show that, he either created said App or the help co-accused in creating it," the magistrate said.

The court also noted that the investigating officer could not produce material establishing the allegation that Jha had shared the application on his Twitter account.

Relying on an Allahabad High Court precedent, the magistrate held that merely following a page on a website did not amount to a punishable offence.

The court further observed that contact with other accused persons, by itself, could not make Jha criminally liable for their alleged acts.

Jha had faced charges under several provisions of the Indian Penal Code, including Sections 153A, 153B, 295A, 354D, 509, 500, 120B and 201, read with Section 34, as well as Section 67 of the Information Technology Act.

The prosecution and investigating officer had opposed his discharge.

Jha and two other accused had earlier secured bail on April 12, when the court had observed that older co-accused had allegedly taken advantage of their immaturity.

The latest order discharges Jha from the charges against him but does not bring the prosecution against the other accused in the case to an end.