One hundred and forty characters. Seemingly harmless. Till you tweet something which is perceived to be unkind to the powers that be. Then you can count the 140 minutes before you end up in the clink. As 46-year-old Ravi Srinivasan, an industrialist from Puducherry found out. What was his crime? He had the temerity to tweet about Karti P Chidambaram, son of Finance Minister P Chidambaram.
What was the offensive tweet, you ask? Well, Ravi Srinivasan on October 19, 2012, tweeted:
Robert Vadra, at that time, was in the news owing to the political row following news reports and an exposé on his allegedly dodgy dealings with DLF.
The tweet was posted on October 19, 2012. After ten days, on October 29, 2012, Karti Chidambaram sent an email to the Inspector General of Puducherry. The complaint stated that Srinivasan had posted “offensive” messages against Karti on three separate occasions on Twitter since the preceding year.
This complaint was forwarded to the Local Crime Branch of Puducherry police. The police acted with unusual alacrity and on October 30, 2012 arrested Srinivasan. When I contacted Srinivasan, he informed me that he was picked up from his home at 5 am and wasn’t even informed why he was being arrested. It was only once the police asked him about his Twitter id at the police station that he realised what his crime could be.
He was informed that he was being charged under Section 66A of Information Technology [IT] Act. The police also demanded 15 days of police custody (probably out of fear that he’d get out and tweet about them next, by which time they could get Twitter profiles and start following Srinivasan – the canny fellows.) Luckily for Srinivasan, Puducherry’s chief judicial magistrate declined the police demand and granted him bail.
Some (politicians, of course) justified Karti’s step, others condemned it. And the tweet was re-tweeted more than 400 times, as reported by the press. The question which arises is why someone with 16 followers (8 of whom were friends and family) – at the time – deserved to be arrested under Section 66A?
Was Srinivasan’s tweet “grossly offensive” or did it have a “menacing character”? Or did it carry “information which he knows to be false, but for the purpose of causing annoyance, inconvenience, danger, obstruction, insult, injury, criminal intimidation, enmity, hatred, or ill will”? Because then, thanks to the ambiguity and subjective nature of Section 66A, Srinivasan could be arrested for up to three years.
Well, Karti Chidambaram obviously felt much wronged by the tweet, and keeping with the nature of the alleged “crime” took to Twitter to explain his viewpoint.
We spoke with Ravi Srinivasan to ask what he made of his arrest. He stated that this was just a move by Karti to silence any opposition for him campaigning from his constituency for the upcoming elections. And Srinivasan was an easy target. Whatever the reason be, Srinivasan has refused to apologise or delete his tweet about Karti, and told us he wants to fight against this injustice.
At present the case is pending and waiting for a direction from the Supreme Court.
And while Srinivasan waits patiently for the wheels of justice to start rolling, he can also thank Karti for making sure his Twitter follower count has gone up from 16 to 2,298 at last count. And for making him a national example of the misuse of the IT act by overtly sensitive politicians. For people who are fighting for the longevity of the IT Act, it’s strange why our politicians make such a concerted effort to highlight how draconian and ludicrous the law is.
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