The accused also submitted that he suffers from a medical condition of to ision deficiency. While granting bail to a 23-year-old man from Telangana, who was booked for allegedly posting obscene and threatening tweets against the infant daughter of an Indian cricketer, a magistrate’s court here in its detailed order observed that the remarks appeared to be made in the context of some other posts and may not be directly addressed to the cricketer or his family.
“Merely because the matter is connected with some respectable Indian cricket team member, the prayer for bail cannot be rejected,” added the metropolitan magistrate court in Bandra, who granted relief to the man last Saturday.
The accused, Ramnagesh Akubathini, was arrested by the Mumbai police cyber cell from Telangana last week on a complaint filed by the manager of the cricketer and his wife. While the man was granted bail on November 20, the detailed order was made available late Thursday.
Magistrate Komalsing Rajput said in the order, “If we perused record and considered the remarks posted and phraseology used in its natural course, it appears that it is made in context of some other posts and may not be directly addressed to the cricketer or his family, even though social media accounts are inter connected, it might have read/received by them. This aspect for the limited purpose of bail cannot be ignored.”
In his bail plea, Akubathini’s lawyer, Abhijeet Desai, submitted that it is not yet established that the objectionable tweets were posted by his client. The plea said that in the “arena of cyber crimes”, hacking of IP addresses is a possibility and the tweet could be the result of the same. Desai claimed that the tweet was deleted after it went viral, which shows that it could have been posted through misuse of the accused’s IP address to “create a problem for him and his bright future”. He said it could also be a case of identity theft.
The plea said that the accused is a young man, who joined IIT, later got a job at a private company and is currently preparing to study abroad. The accused also submitted that he suffers from a medical condition of to ision deficiency.
The court order read, “The contents of the FIR and whole record show that in response to a certain social media post, the accused allegedly mentioned and posted a message that he is in search of photos of a child for assaulting her. He has neither transmitted or published any material showing child involving in sexually explicit act. Therefore, there is doubt whether any of these offences are made out or not?”
The magistrate noted that majority of the offences levelled against accused are bailable and triable by the same court.
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