The Supreme Court on Friday decided to lay down a law on whether courts can ask a person to stop using his or her social media accounts as a condition for grant of bail in cases where the person is alleged to have incited people through tweets or posts.

A bench of Chief Justice S.A. Bobde and Justices R. Subhash Reddy and A.S. Bopanna issued notice to the Centre and the Uttar Pradesh government on a petition filed by Congress leader Sachin Choudhary challenging an Allahabad High Court order that granted him bail on the condition that he would not post anything on social media till the trial is over.

The Uttar Pradesh government had filed an FIR against Choudhary for alleged criminal offences relating to hate speech and sedition.

Choudhary had criticised the state government on social media for its perceived mishandling of the Covid-19 relief effort.

CJI Bobde orally told senior advocate Salman Khurshid, appearing for Choudhary, that prima facie it did not find anything wrong with the high court order.

“We don’t think it’s too onerous if a person’s participation on social media creates mischief. Why can’t a court say you don’t use the instrument by which you caused mischief?” Justice Bobde asked the senior advocate.

Khurshid told the court that there had been no allegation that Choudhary had misused social media.

CJI Bobde replied: “We would like to lay down the law on this.”