HYDERABAD: The Telangana High Court on Thursday dismissed a petition filed by an accused seeking to quash the case registered against him by the Cyber crime police under the Information Technology Act based on a complaint lodged by YS Sharmila Reddy, daughter of former chief minister late YS Rajasekhara Reddy. “It is not proper to make comments against a woman,’’ the court noted.
Justice Shameem Akther was dismissing the petition filed by Peddishetty Venkateshwara Rao, a MCA student from Prakasam district, with a plea to stay all further proceedings in the case registered under Section 67A of IT Act and Section 509 IPC by the Cyber crime police, Hyderabad.
The petitioner’s counsel contended that Section 67 of IT Act was not applicable to the present case since it attracts only when obscene material was published in electronic form. In the present case, the only allegation was that he posted a comment on an existing video on Internet relating to Sharmila. In fact, the petitioner was neither a publisher nor a transmitter of obscene material, but only posted a comment on the existing video. Even Sections 354-D and 509 of IPC were not applicable to the case, he argued and urged for quashing the case.
Disputing with the above submissions, the government counsel told the court that the investigation officer has arrested the petitioner from his college in Guntur, but was later enlarged on bail by the trial court at Nampally. He alleged that the petitioner had posted vulgar comment on the said video thereby hurting the respondent (Sharmila), and urged the court to dismiss the petition.Taking into consideration the submissions of the government counsel, the judge dismissed the petition.