‘Merely following an app not a crime’: Mumbai court discharges accused in ‘Bulli Bai’ case

The magistrate said merely following the app did not amount to an offence and found no proof that Jha helped create or promote the platform.

Engineering student Vishal Sudhirkumar Jha, 25, the first of six persons to be arrested in the Bulli Bai app case in 2022, was discharged by a magistrate’s court in Mumbai on Tuesday. He was discharged for want of evidence linking him to either the creation of the online platform or sharing photographs of Muslim women on the app.

Background of the Bulli Bai App

Jha was arrested on January 4, 2022, three days after the controversial platform was launched on GitHub. (PTI/Representational)

The Bulli Bai app, accused of promoting cyber misogyny and religious enmity, was taken down after it triggered national outrage. It was, in fact, the second app in months to “auction” prominent Muslim women online, the other being Sulli Deals, both platforms using pejorative words to describe Muslim women.

The apps uploaded photos and the names of prominent Muslim journalists, activists, celebrities and artists as “Bulli Bai of the Day” or “Deals of the Day” and invited users to bid for them. No auctions were actually carried out, the intent being harassment of minority women.

Six people were arrested in the Bulli Bai case, four by the Mumbai police and two by the Delhi police. All six were charge-sheeted. With Jha’s discharge, five people face trial. All of them are out on bail.

Details about BUlli Bai app.

Judicial Findings on Jha's Involvement

Jha was accused of following and sharing the Bulli Bai app hosted on open-source platform GitHub. The Mumbai magistrate, however, found that the investigating officer could not prove that Jha had shared the app on Twitter. “The only role, therefore, is that he (Jha) followed the Bulli Bai app,” Judicial Magistrate RT Ingle said on Tuesday.

Relying on a 2023 Allahabad High Court judgment, the magistrate held that merely following a page on a website does not constitute an offence under the Information Technology Act.

The Bulli Bai app, launched on January 1, 2022, posted photographs of more than 100 Muslim women, including journalists. A woman whose photograph was posted on the platform registered a complaint with the Mumbai Cyber Police.

Jha, then studying engineering at an institute in Bengaluru, was arrested on January 4, 2022, becoming the first person to be arrested in the case by Mumbai Police. He was subsequently charge-sheeted for promoting enmity, outraging religious sentiments, stalking, defamation and criminal conspiracy.

Court's Assessment of the Evidence

The prosecution alleged that Jha was in touch with the other accused and had followed and shared the Bulli Bai app. However, the magistrate stated, “The IO could not show that the applicant has shared Bullibai App on Twitter account as alleged by the informant.” The court noted that the app was taken down soon after its launch and there was “no record to show the applicant shared Bulli Bai App on his Twitter handle”.

While discharging Jha from the case, the court said that while there was evidence to show that he was in contact with some of the co-accused, that itself was not evidence of his involvement in creating the Bulli Bai app.

The magistrate also noted that there was no material to show that Jha had helped the alleged app creator Niraj Bishnoi set up the platform or gave him photographs of Muslim women. “Mere following the app will not constitute the offence as alleged by the prosecution.”

Tuesday’s developments contrast with those concerning Mayank Rawat, another accused in the case. In April, the same court rejected Rawat’s discharge plea, holding that there was prima facie material showing that he had downloaded photographs of Muslim women from their social media accounts and posted them on the Bulli Bai app.