Recently, the Bombay High Court held that printed screenshots of defamatory Facebook posts alone are inadequate to establish that they were generated by a fake Facebook account.

“Print of screen shots of Facebook material will not at any stretch of the imagination would prove that the said post was created from an alleged fake account,” the order reads.

The division bench consisting of Justice Vibha Kankanwadi and Justice Chapagoankar, was hearing a petition filed by a man in response to a complaint lodged against him by his brother-in-law.

The complaint alleged that the man created two fake Facebook accounts, "Minal Basavraj Swami" and "Chandra Surnal," to defame him and his family. It also claimed that these actions were driven by marital discord between the man and his wife.

The bench also expressed dissatisfaction with the manner in which the investigation was conducted. It pointed out that the Investigating Officer should have enlisted the assistance of an expert to trace the IP address from which the fake accounts were created.

“When it was specifically alleged in the First Information Report that two Facebook accounts have been fraudulently created, then the Investigating Officer ought to have got help of an expert to see from which IP address those accounts were created, whether any such electronic device of the said IP address is with the accused,” the order reads.