BENGALURU: Actor Sruthi Hariharan has moved the Karnataka High Court seeking directions to quash the First Information Report (FIR) registered against her by the cyber crime police based on a complaint filed by Shiva Arjun, manager of actor-director Arjun Sarja — who is facing charges of sexual harassment.
The cyber crime police had registered a FIR on October 25 against Sruthi under various provisions of the IPC and Information Technology Act.
She has contended that there is no proof to justify the offences invoked in the FIR. Questioning the FIR, S Balakrishnan, counsel for Sruthi, contended that even if the allegations made in the FIR were taken at their face value, they do not prima facie constitute any offences like extortion, cheating by personation, threat, cyber crime, etc. The allegations made are absurd and there is not an iota of evidence or material to prove charges against Sruthi, the counsel claimed.
The counsel contended that some unknown persons were promoting fake IDs on social medias of Arjun Sarja, transmitting offensive information, which is in grave violation of Information Technology Act. But there was absolutely no evidence regarding theft of electronic signature, password or any other identification feature of any other person by Sruthi. Moreover, there is no locus standi of Shiva Arjun to approach cyber crime police, he claimed. In the complaint to the cyber crime police station, Shiva Arjun had alleged that Sarja’s social media accounts were hacked and misused by Sruthi Hariharan and others. He also alleged that he was receiving anonymous calls for money. The petition is yet to come up for hearing.
Arjun Sarja had filed a defamation suit against Sruthi and also moved the High Court seeking to quash an FIR registered against him by Cubbon Park Police based on the complaint filed by Sruthi. The Karnataka High Court had asked the police not to arrest Arjun Sarja till November 14, the next date of hearing.