Two charges that were dropped by police when they had filed a chargesheet in court have come back to haunt Jadavpur University professor Ambikesh Mahapatra, while the original charge, under Section 66A of the Information Technology Act, has been scrapped following a Supreme Court order.
The result, even though the so-called original offence did not stick, the teacher still had to make 72 rounds of the court in the past 10 years and get his passport renewed every year because of the pending criminal case against him.
Mahapatra, who had been arrested in April 2012 for forwarding an Internet joke lampooning chief minister Mamata Banerjee and was slapped with Section 66A of the Information Technology Act by the state government, was also charged with three other sections — 500, 509 and 114 of the Indian Penal Code.
However, when the police submitted the chargesheet in July 2012, they dropped the three IPC sections and retained only Section 66A of the IT Act in their document.
In 2015, as the Supreme Court issued an order scrapping all cases under section 66A of the IT Act, the complainant in Mahapatra’s case moved an appeal to re-add Sections 500 and 509 of the IPC.
Mahapatra told The Telegraph on Thursday: “It was surprising how the court took cognisance of the prayer (to revive these charges) even after the police had dropped these sections. The decision if I should be tried under Sections 500 and 509 of the IPC is still pending in the court even after I have been discharged from Section 66A of the IT Act,” It has been 10 years and six months since Mahapatra had been charged with the offence.
“I am still making rounds of the courts, challenging orders, defending myself against the administration. Initially, I got a lot of support from my friends, my colleagues, and my housing cooperative. Many of the lawyers who fought for me, offered their service free of cost, backing me for the stand I took. But gradually, after a decade, now I am fighting a lone battle,” said chemistry teacher Mahapatra, a father of two.
Section 500 of the IPC deals with the offence of defamation while Section 509 deals with the offence of outraging the modesty of a woman through words and gestures.
The charges, if proven, can lead to a maximum punishment of three years of imprisonment.
Lawyer and Trinamul Congress leader Baiswanar Chatterjee, who is representing defacto complainant Amit Sardar, told The Telegraph: “The matter is pending before the court. Law will take its own course.”
The Supreme Court on Wednesday directed that no citizen could be prosecuted under Section 66A of the Information Technology Act, 2000, which was scrapped in 2015, and struck down all pending cases under the section.
In cases like that of Mahapatra, where both Indian Penal Code and 66A offences have been invoked, only Section 66A would stand deleted.
Mahapatra has attended six court hearings this year alone, the next hearing being on November 30, 2022.
On several occasions, Mahapatra had turned up at the court taking leave from his workplace only to be told that the court would not be working that day.
