A Delhi court has asked the Delhi Police to lodge an FIR against a former Himachal MLA for allegedly abusing and criminally intimidating an RTI activist on Facebook in 2016.
Metropolitan Magistrate Preeti Parewa passed the order on an application by the activist, Dev Ashish Bhattacharya, alleging that accused Niraj Bharti and seven co-accused abused him when he objected to posting of derogatory remarks by them against BJP leader Anurag Thakur and objectionable morphed photographs of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union Minister Smriti Irani on the social media site.
The Magistrate directed the North Avenue police to lodge an FIR, probe the allegations levelled by the complainant and file a compliance report in the court by April 22.
It has been alleged that having been hurt by the posts, the complainant suggested Mr. Bharti to refrain from it. Instead of heeding to his request, he and the other accused began posting abuses against him on the interactive site.
Thereafter, the complainant filed a complaint with the North Avenue police tagging the printouts of the posts in March 2016, urging them to lodge a case under relevant provisions of the Indian Penal Code and the Information Technology Act.
About three months later, the police informed the complainant in reply to an RTI application that no action had been taken since he had not provided sufficient information, the complainant said in the application filed in the court.
Mr. Bhattacharya alleged that the police would have acted with alacrity if such complaints had been filed by important personalities, but in his case the probe agency had not taken even the preliminary action of recording the statement of the main accused which is fundamental to beginning probe.
The complainant urged the court to punish the accused persons for committing the offences under Sections 116, 292, 500, 34, 506 of the Indian Penal Code and under 66A and 67 of the Information Technology Act 2000.
