Sarabpreet Singh, a young entrepreneur who had been arrested on April 3 allegedly for putting an objectionable post against Chief Minister Raghubar Das, was granted bail by the Special Cyber Crime Court of Additional Judicial Commissioner Santosh Kumar.
The FIR was lodged following an e-mail sent by Assistant Director of Perfetti Van Melle India ltd Anand Tiwari to Cyber Police Station in Ranchi.
Singh on April 1 had posted a meme using advertisement of a mouth freshener, juxtaposing it very neatly with the video footage of Chief Minister Raghubar Das shouting loudly on the Opposition leaders in the Assembly out of fun, without any idea that he will land in jail for the violation of copyright act.
“Sarabpreet was granted bail on the ground that the charges leveled against him under the cyber Act did not had sufficient ingredient for putting him under judicial custody,” said his counsel Pandey PN Rai Pankaj. Singh was primarily booked under the IT Act for uploading an objectionable video on his twitter and Facebook accounts, he added.
Singh has been booked under Sections 419 (impersonation), 420 (fraud) and 468 (forgery) of the IPC, Sections 103 (false trademark) and 105 (subsequent offence) of the Trademark Act, 1999 along with Sections 66c and 66d (identity theft) of the IT Act.
“The Court was quite convinced by the arguments that the two charges leveled against my client related to Trade Mark Act and Copy Right Act were not sufficient and hence he may be granted bail,” said the Advocate. Moreover, there did not had any malicious intention behind uploading the video and was just posted out of fun to mark April-fool, he added.
Another Advocate Pandey Neeraj Rai appearing for Singh, also asserted that though the complaint was filed against the violation of Copy Right Act, non non-bailable sections were deliberately imposed on Singh.
“Even assuming the allegations to be correct, non-bailable sections could not be made out and Police imposed it deliberately due to some unknown reasons,” said Rai. Intention was not wrong and it was just a prank to mark April fool which did not attract any offence of forgery or cheating, he added.
Singh, creator of the e-commerce and blogging website - ‘Made in Ranchi,’ has been charged with impersonation, cheating and forgery, among others, triggering a campaign for freedom of expression on Twitter and Facebook.
Singh’s arresting on April 3 attracted wide criticism for the State Government as such memes are created everywhere on social media for fun only and should be taken in good spirit.