A twitter user was acquitted by a local court on Friday of the charge of defaming former Union Finance Minister P. Chidambaram’s son Karti Chidambaram.
On October 30, 2012, Ravi Srinivasan, a city-based businessman and a volunteer with India Against Corruption, was arrested — reportedly a first-for-tweets in the country — following a complaint by Mr. Karti.
Mr. Srinivasan was allegedly woken up in the early hours and dragged out of his house by CB-CID personnel and informed that he was under arrest for his tweets. He was charged under Section 66-A of Information Technology Act 2008.
The charge against him was that some of the tweets from his Twitter account allegedly defamed Mr.Karti and some other tweets reportedly made unseemly references to P. Chidambaram, then Finance Minister. The case has been pending in the Chief Judicial Magistrate Court.
Following the Supreme Court order striking down the controversial provision of Section 66-A of Information Technology Act 2008, Mr. Srinivasan approached the Chief Judicial Magistrate court for closure of the case.
Passing a brief order, the Magistrate G.Vijayakumari acquitted Mr. Srinivasan.
He was arrested for his tweets defaming Karti Chidambaram
