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BEFORE THE MADURAI BENCH OF MADRAS HIGH COURT

Dated: 12/01/2022

CORAM:

THE HON'BLE MR JUSTICE G.ILANGOVAN

Crl.O.P.(MD)No.12441 of 2020

and

Crl.MP(MD)No.5633 of 2020

P.Nithish : Petitioner/Sole Accused

Vs.

1.The Superintendent of Police,

Virudhunagar District,

Virudhunagar.

2.The Inspector of Police,

All Women Police Station,

Sivakasi,

Virudhunagar District. : Respondents/Complainants

Prayer: Criminal Original Petition is filed under Section 482 of the

Criminal Procedure Code, to call for the records in connection with

the case in Crime No.2 of 2020 on the file of the 2^nd respondent and

quash the same.

For Petitioner

: Mr.M.Ajmal Khan

Senior counsel

for M/s.Ajmal Associates

For Respondents : Mr.R.Meenakshi Sundaram

Additional Public Prosecutor

O R D E R

This petition has been filed by the petitioner seeking

quashment of the case in Crime No.2 of 2020 on the file of the 2^nd

respondent police.

2.The case of the prosecution is that the petitioner by using

his Instagram shared the child pornographic picture on 05/05/2019

from 11.24.27 IST and this was noticed by the National Centre of

Missing and Exploited Children. On the basis of the above said

information, a case has been registered against the petitioner for

the offences under sections 13, 14(1), 16, 17 of the Protection of

Children from Sexual Offence Act, 2012 and Section 67(B) (b) of the

Information Technology Act, 2000. During the course enquiry, it was

https://hcservices.ecourts.gov.in/hcservices/

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found that Broad Band connection used by the petitioner was in the

name of his father.

3.Seeking quashment of the above said FIR, this petition has

been filed mainly on the ground of forensic science laboratory

report, dated 25/06/2020 doe not support the prosecution case.

4.Heard both sides.

5.The entire CD file has been called for and perused. When the

matter was heard, a specific stand was taken by the learned Senior

counsel appearing for the petitioner that during the course of

examination of the mobile phone that was used by the petitioner by

the computer forensic science lab, no such contents were found or no

trace of deletion of the contents were also found . To a query, then

how the ID address was found bearing with that of the mobile phone

of this petitioner, the learned Senior counsel has submitted that if

really the mobile details with the details of the petitioner was

used for a child or for any pornographic purpose through Instagram,

traces would have been found in the mobile phone. So according to

him, in the absence of any such particulars, the prosecution itself

is to be an abuse of process of court.

6.But this court is also not in a position to know how the ID

address of this petitioner can be found during the course monitoring

by the Monitoring Centre called 'National Centre for missing and

Exploited Children.' So it involves technical and scientific

explanation. But as on today, now the mobile phone that has been

used by the petitioner does not contain any child pornographic

pictures. Similarly, there is no trace in the mobile phone to the

effect that these pictures have been deleted from the mobile phone.

7.For better appreciation, let me reproduce the entire

examination and findings in the report.

“EXAMINATION & FINDINGS:-

The items were examined with reference to the

points raised in the Court letter vide reference.

The findings during the examination are furnished

hereunder:-

Hard disk in the laptop, Item 1

The data/files/folders stored in the hard disk

were examined using the forensic software tool

“Encase V7.7” under a write protected environment

and the findings are furnished below.

(i)Partition/volume details of the hard disk

are given in Annexure I.

(ii)On examination of al