Chennai, Dec 17 (PTI) The Madras High Court has set aside a criminal case registered against a man, who was running a virtual platform in Coimbatore.

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It is a clear case of abuse of process of law, Justice G Jayachandran said while passing orders on a criminal original petition from VerSe Innovation Private Limited, by its managing director Virendra Kumar Gupta, recently.

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The petitioner was engaged in the business of news dissemination by carving out news items from various sources and publishing them in his virtual platform in the name.

Following a complaint from one Ashok Kumar, a worker of the AIADMK, the Kattoor police registered a case against Gupta in 2018. The complaint alleged the photograph published by the petitioner in the social media carrying a caption that a senior party leader was seen with an accused arrested in a fake currency note case has caused shock and heart burn to the party cadre.

After going through the materials, the judge observed that it is a clear abuse of power . The content of the objectionable photograph and the news article no way cause a prima facie case to register a criminal complaint under any provision of law much less the two sections, the judge said and quashed the FIR.

(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)