A lawyer was sent to jail for sending birthday greetings to a judge. The case pertains to Ratlam where advocate Vijaysingh Yadav was arrested for sending an email and a birthday card to Judicial Magistrate First Class (JMFC) Mithali Pathakon on January 29.
A complaint was filed against the lawyer and he was arrested by the Ratlam Police on February 9. In the complaint, the plaintiff has accused the advocate of downloading her photo without authorisation. The complaint further mentioned that since the lawyer was not on the judge’s Facebook friend list, such an ‘unauthorized access’ or use of the photograph would attract provisions of the Information Technology Act.
An FIR was filed against the lawyer under Section 420 (Cheating and dishonestly inducing delivery of property), 467 (Forgery of valuable security ), 468 (Forgery for purpose of cheating), 469 (Forgery for purpose of harming reputation) of the Indian Penal Code and Section 41 read with 67(Punishment for publishing or transmitting obscene material in electronic form) of the Information Technology Act, 2000.
Family of the lawyer file a bail plea at Madhya Pradesh High court
Four days after his arrest, i.e February 13, the family members of the accused had applied for bail on his behalf. However, it was turned down by the local court.
After his bail plea was rejected in the local court, Yadav approached the Madhya Pradesh High Court for interim relief. His case will be heard on Wednesday by the Indore bench of the Madhya Pradesh HC. In his bail application, Yadav had stated that he has been wrongly implicated in the case with unnecessary and unwanted charges. Yadav’s bail plea was filed by his brother Jay Yadav. In the bail plea, Yadav has also cited a separate “private complaint” submitted by him to the Chief Judicial Magistrate (CJM), Ratlam, against JMFC.
Yadav has submitted that there was no intent from his side to tarnish the reputation of the judge. Additionally, he has claimed that he lacks knowledge about ‘internet access’ and social media. He has also stated in the plea that he had sent the birthday greeting as a social worker and president of Jai Kul Devi Sewa Samiti, Ratlam — and that he had downloaded the image from Google and used it as a “creative designer”.