ORDER :

P.N. Prakash, J.

1. This case was taken up through video conferencing.

2. For the sake of convenience, the dramatist personae in this case will be referred to by their names.

3. Dr. Gunaseelan (de facto complainant) and Dr. S.M. Balaji (A2) are Dental Surgeons having specialised in Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery. They both are members of the Indian Society for Dental Research and International Association of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgeons. There was an international conference of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgeons at Barcelona, Spain, on 21st October 2013, in which, Dr. Gunaseelan (de facto complainant) and other surgeons from India presented a scientific paper on Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery. On return from Barcelona, one Dr. Kishore Nayak, a friend of Dr. Gunaseelan (de facto complainant), forwarded an e-mail that was received by him from the e-mail ID: mfssurgeons@gmail.com with derogatory contents against Dr. Kishore Nayak, Dr. George Paul and Dr. Gunaseelan (de facto complainant). It may not be necessary to set out the entire contents in this order, but, it would suffice, if some excerpts are extracted:

"The HMA trust presided by Drs. Kishore Nayak, George Paul, Gunaseelan Rajan had been involved in a series of malpractices supposedly through Dental Counsel of India and has been raided by CBI. Dr. Gunaseelan Rajan was arrested repeatedly by CBI in this regard. Subsequently their DCI memberships were stripped by the Tamil Nadu State Government. The ill gotten money has been spent by HMA trust members to build medical college, hospitals, renovate clinic and build a construction empire for his son at Bangalore."

4. Apart from the above, the e-mail is replete with insinuations and allegations of fraud. Therefore, Dr. Gunaseelan (de facto complainant) gave a complaint dated 01.11.2013, based on which, the police registered an FIR in Crime No. 30 of 2014 on 11.01.2014, for the offences under Sections 500 and 507 IPC and Section 66-A of the Information Technology Act, 2008 (for short "the IT Act"), against "suspected e-mail ID: mfssurgeons@gmail.com".

5. The investigation of the case was taken over by Anbazhagan, Inspector of Police, Cyber Crime. During the course of investigation, it came to light that, on account of personal rivalry between Dr. Balaji (A2) and Dr. Gunaseelan (de facto complainant), a false e-mail ID in the name of mfssurgeons@gmail.com was created by Jayaprakash (A1), an employee of Balaji Dental and Craniofacial Hospital, Chennai, run by Dr. Balaji (A2) and the impugned e-mail was sent to all the Dental Surgeons through out the world. Jayaprakash (A1) was arrested by the police and Dr. Balaji (A2) was released on anticipatory bail.

6. After completing the investigation, Anbazhagan, Investigating Officer, filed a final report dated 02.06.2015 before the XI Metropolitan Magistrate, Chennai, for the offences under Sections 506(I) and 507 IPC and Section 66-D of the IT Act, against Jayaprakash (A1) and Dr. Balaji (A2).

7. At this juncture, it may be apposite to extract a few paragraphs from the final report:

"On the above complaint, during the course of preliminary enquiry, the requisition was sent on 12.11.2013 to Google Service Provider to furnish the Internet Protocol (IP) logs for the above said email id mfssurgeons@gmail.com. The documents furnished by the Google service provider, it is ascertained that the login IP was 101.220.244.157 on 23.10.2013 at 15.24.36 UTC (20:54:36 IST). The user details for the alleged IP was obtained from Aircel broadband service and found to be originated from the Data Card number 7299008833 which belong to one Mr. Jeyapragash, No. 37/68, Srirampet CIT Nagar, Nandhanam, Chennai 600035. A case in CCB Crime No. 30/2014 U/s. 500, 506(ii), 507 IPC and 66 A of the IT Amendment Act 2008 was registered on 11.01.2014 at 21.00 hrs and taken up for investigation.

There was a previous enmity between the 2nd accused and the complainant and other maxillofacial surgeons, the 2nd accused has ins