Misuse of Vast Powers by Pune Police to Harass Bangalore Techie Lakshmana Kailash

This is a shocking case for techie people and anyone else in the country who believes law and order. The police can’t get away with a mere apology after they wrongly charging Lakshmana Kailash and putting him in jail for 51 days on the basis of a mistake.

On August 31st, Lakshmana was arrested from his Bangalore home by Pune police under Information Technology Act, 2000 for defaming Chhatrapati Shivaji by uploading denigrated pictures of Shivaji on Orkut. Of course, it's act of ill mentality many communities on Orkut has and they shall be punished.

But this does not entitle the cops to do such mistakes and harass anyone so easily. The cops may argue that they acted in good faith and the error was made by the telecom company, Bharati Airtel. But wasn’t the mistake compounded because of very poor police work? In fact, it is because of police sloppiness — or is it arrogance? — that the youngster has suffered this nightmare.

Currently, the law doesn’t allow for suing the police and other authorities for such mistakes. The law must be changed so that hapless people like Lakshmana can demand and get compensation for being gravely wronged. That will also force the police to be careful while exercising their vast powers.