A police report was filed against Google CEO Sundar Pichai and 17 others in Varanasi under various sections of the Indian Penal Code and the Information Technology Act, but the former’s name was subsequently removed.
While the police case was filed on February 6, the matter came to light only on Friday when the in-charge of the Bhelupur police station Amit Mishra said that the case was filed on the directions of the Chief Judicial Magistrate (3rd).
The case was lodged under Sections 500, 504, 506, 120B of the Indian Penal Code and Section 67 of the IT Act.
While Section 500 details the punishment for defamation, Section 504 deals with intentional insult or provocation likely to breach public peace, Section 506 is for criminal intimidation and 120B is for criminal conspiracy. Section 67 of the IT act refers to the publication and transmission of obscene material.
The report was lodged on the basis of a video made by an activist called Girija Shanker Jaiswal who had come across a video of a singer from Ghazipur called Vishal Ghazipuri. The video was alleged to have contained defamatory references to Prime Minister Narendra Modi. When Jaiswal, who had first seen the video in October 2000, called Ghazipuri to complain, the singer became abusive. Jaiswal also alleges that Ghazipuri then made another video of the activist and appended his phone number to the same asking for monetary help. This was followed by thousands of abusive phone calls to Jaiswal.
Jaiswal then wrote to Google, Facebook and YouTube asking for both the videos- the one offensive to the PM and the one which featured his phone number--to be removed, but received no response.
Jaiswal subsequently approached the SSP of Varanasi for help but when nothing came of it, he approached the district judiciary.
Pichai and three top Google India officials were named in the subsequent report. Their names were removed when no connection was found between them and the video.
Other issues in the case are being investigated.
