A magistrate court has discharged a 25-year-old engineering student who was arrested in 2022 in connection with the ‘Bulli Bai’ auction app case. While discharging the student, the court observed that there is no evidence that he was involved in the creation of the ‘Bulli Bai’ app or shared photographs of the women.

‘Bulli Bai’ was allegedly a mock auction app made to upload photos of Muslim women with objectionable comments. Vishal Jha, who was then an engineering student at a Bengaluru institute, was the first person to be arrested in the case by the Mumbai Police. It is, however, not known if Jha is still a student.

Seeking to be cleared in the case, Jha’s lawyer said that the only allegation against him in the chargesheet is that he had shared and followed the app. On this, the court said this in itself is not an offence. 

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“…admittedly, the role of the present applicant is that he followed the….App and he was in contact with the co-accused. In the case cited… the Hon’ble Allahabad High Court held that following the page on the website is not an offence. In the present case, the applicant followed…the App. There is no further role attributed by the prosecution against him. So, following the App in view of the above-mentioned judgment is not an offence,” Judicial Magistrate Court R T Ingle said.

In April, the court had rejected the discharge plea of another accused, Mayank Rawat, noting that prima facie there is proof that he had outraged the modesty of women by downloading the photographs of the Muslim women from their social media accounts and posting them on the app. 

The cyber cell unit of the Bandra Kurla Complex had filed a complaint under sections including 153 (a) promoting enmity between two groups, 295 (a) (deliberate acts to outrage religious feelings), 354 (d) (stalking), 500 (defamation), and 509 (insulting modesty of a woman) of the Indian Penal Code and relevant sections of the Information Technology Act.

Discharging Jha, the court said that while there is evidence that he was in touch with some of the co-accused, that in itself is not evidence of his involvement.

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“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. Even there is no allegation that he shared photographs of Muslim women,” the court said.