Following Supreme Court order striking down the controversial provision of Section 66-A of Information Technology Act 2008, a city-based businessman, who was perhaps the first ever person booked under the provision for allegedly defamatory tweets, on Friday approached a local court for closure of the case.
On October 30, 2012, Ravi Srinivasan, businessman and a volunteer with India Against Corruption, was arrested — reportedly a first-for-tweets in the country — following a complaint by Congress leader and then Union Finance Minister P. Chidambaram’s son Karti Chidambaram.
Mr. Srinivasan was allegedly woken up in the early hours and dragged out of his house by CB-CID men and informed that he was under arrest for his tweets.
The charge 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. He was produced before a judicial magistrate and released on bail in the evening.
The case has been pending still in the Chief Judicial Magistrate Court, Puducherry and Mr. Srinivasan has filed a petition in the court for discharging him from the proceeding.
Mr. Srinivasan had contended that the case against him was groundless from the available records/documents and the statements of prosecution.
When the matter came up for hearing arguments on Friday, Mr.Srinivasan appeared and filed another petition through his counsel M.V. Ramachandra Murthy before Chief Judicial Magistrate G.Vijayakumari.
Mr. Ramachandra Murthy said Mr. Srinivasan has been charged for the alleged offence under Section 66-A of IT Act which the Supreme Court had the other day struck down declaring it unconstitutional.
Hence, he prayed that Mr. Srinivasan be discharged from the case and appropriate orders passed to this effect.
The Chief Judicial Magistrate adjourned the matter to April 2 for pronouncing order.
