Factual background 

In the matter of Ziyavudeen v UoI, a plea was made by a person named Ziyavudeen Baqavi, who was charged by the NIA after being detained for allegedly accessing and posting content from a “fundamentalist” Islamic organization’s Facebook page in violation of the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA).

The contention by the parties 

According to the petitioner, Baqavi’s attorney claimed that the mere act of distributing posts did not violate UAPA’s Section 13(1)(b) of law. He said that in ruling that an offence under the UAPA was established in the case, the NIA Court had disregarded all evidence in the case and had instead exclusively relied on Wikipedia’s definition of the fundamentalist” Islamic group.

Analysis of court order 

An order of a special NIA court that had relied on Wikipedia to reject a Muslim preacher’s discharge plea in a case under the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA) was overturned, according to a madras high court bench of Justices M Sundar and M Nirmal Kumar, who noted that the Supreme Court had explicitly warned against courts using “Wikipedia” in making legal decisions. The bench further emphasised that prior Supreme Court judgements had determined that user-based sites like Wikipedia were unreliable and that courts could not use them for “legal dispute resolution.”