Two days after arresting a youngster by invoking different sections of law, including one struck down by the Supreme Court, the Rachakonda police filed a memo in a local court here on Thursday stating that it was an oversight.
The Neredmet police of Rachakonda arrested Bharatiya Janata Yuva Morcha (BJYM) leader Sai Prasad late on Monday night following a complaint lodged by one person called Rohit. Based on the complaint, they registered a criminal case against Prasad by invoking sections 500, 506 and 120-B of Indian Penal Code (IPC) along with sections 66A of Information Technology (IT) Act.
Section 66A of IT Act was declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court more than three years ago. Recently, the apex court expressed concern on learning that arrests were still being made by invoking the section of law scrapped by it. The SC cautioned that action would be initiated against persons responsible for invoking the section which was already struck down.
Memo filed
The issue of invoking the scrapped section of law against the BJYM leader went viral in social media. Apparently realising their mistake, the Neredmet police filed the memo before the 19th Metropolitan Magistrate Court of Malkajgiri on Thursday admitting that applying Section 66A of IT Act and even Section 120-B of IPC was an oversight and typographical error. It happened due to rush of work, they said in the memo.
Mr. Prasad had been campaigning against ruling Telangana Rashtra Samithi leader M. Hanumantha Rao for past few years. Mr. Rao got elected as Malkajgiri MLA in the recent elections. During the election campaign, Mr. Prasad allegedly generated some video and text content showering charges against Mr. Rao. “Only to take vengeance on me for challenging his supremacy, the opponents got me implicated in a false case,” said Mr. Prasad who got released on bail on Thursday after being lodged in prison for two days following his arrest.
Interestingly, there were two more typographical errors in the memo filed by Neredmet police admitting their mistake. Instead of mentioning ‘remand diary’, they typed ‘remind diary’ and ‘awarements’ in the place of averments in the memo.
