The Chennai High Court has ordered anticipatory bail for a person who was booked for having watched the pirated film Jananayagan on a website.
Before the assembly elections, Vijay had announced that Jananayagan, which he starred in and said would be his last film, was scheduled to release during the last Pongal festival. However, while the film was still under review by the censor board’s revising committee, it was illegally released on a website on April 3.
The case registered based on a complaint filed by film production company K.V.N. Productions is being investigated by the Cyber Crime Wing of the Chennai Police. In this case, a case was also registered against R. Pradeep Kumar, a resident of Mettur in Salem district.
Pradeep Kumar’s petition seeking anticipatory bail in this case came up for hearing before Judge C. Kumarappan. At that time, the petitioner’s side stated that the case against the petitioner had been registered only because he had watched the film in the main case that was filed when the film Jananayagan was illegally released.
On the police side, only a preliminary charge sheet has been filed in the trial court. He stated that if the petitioner is not arrested and interrogated, the digital evidence related to the film leak may not be found.
After hearing arguments from both sides, Judge Kumarappan ordered that some of the accused in the case have already been released on statutory bail, the final report has been filed, the petitioner was not initially considered an accused, and apart from having watched the illegally released film, no other serious allegations have been made; on this basis, conditional anticipatory bail is granted to the petitioner.
