The Puri Sub-Divisional Judicial Magistrate Court on Friday convicted an RTI campaigner in a cyber pornography case to six years’ imprisonment. This became the first conviction case of cyber pornography crime in Odisha.
The court also imposed a fine of Rs 9,000 on the Puri-based RTI activist Jayant Kumar Das. Das had been arrested by the Crime Branch in 2012 for allegedly uploading obscene remarks against a journalist’s wife on an American porn site.
“This is the first cyber pornography conviction case in the State. Das was convicted in all the sections slapped against him,” claimed Public Prosecutor Chittaranjan Kanungo.
Complainant Biswajit Patnaik, who was working in a vernacular daily, said Das defamed his wife to take revenge on him as he had exposed the RTI campaigner’s illegal money lending business.
“He created a forged e-mail account and fake profile in my wife’s name and linked the fake profile to an America-based porn website and posted vulgar remarks. He also posted my phone number on the porn portal,” said Patnaik.
later, the journalist lodged an FIR against Das at the Baselisahi police station in Puri in July 2012 after getting obscene messages and phone calls. The Cyber Cell of the Crime Branch took over investigation in August 2012 and arrested Das on September 18, 2012.
In its chargesheet filed in court in December same year, the CB slapped Sections 292 (obscenity), 465 (forgery), 469 (forgery for the purpose of harming reputation) and 500 (punishment for defamation) of the IPC and 66C/67/67A of the Information Technology Act against Das.