A city-based businessman who was perhaps the first ever person booked under Section 66-A of the Information Technology Act, 2008, is a much relieved man following the Supreme Court striking down the provision on Tuesday.
On October 30, 2012, >Ravi Srinivasan , a 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 told The Hindu , “The Supreme Court’s order is a great relief and I am very happy that case against me will end soon.”
It was around 5 a.m. on October 30 that Mr. Srinivasan was allegedly woken up and dragged out of his house by CB-CID men and told 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, the then Finance Minister.
He was produced before a judicial magistrate and released on bail in the evening.
He is convinced that social media, when properly used, is the best tool for the common man to express his views. He also added that he would very soon file application in the local court to close the case against him.
