The special investigation team probing Mangalam TV's telecast of an audio clip of a lewd conversation allegedly of former minister AK Saseendran, raided its Thiruvananthapuram office on Monday.
The raid for collecting electronic evidences comes a day after the investigating team recorded the statements of all the nine staff against whom FIR was filed. In the raid, the police team is learnt to have gathered the details of the server that contains the news report on the conversation, reports The Times of India. The audio was aired by the news channel on March 26, forcing AK Saseendran to resign on the same day.
According to the report, none of the accused persons were present in the office during the raid. The case against the chairman of the channel Sajan Varghese, CEO R Ajith Kumar and seven others has been registered under Section 67A of the Information Technology Act and Section 120B (conspiracy) of the IPC. Section 67A of the IT Act says, whoever publishes or transmits or causes to be published or transmitted in the electronic form any material which contains sexually explicit act or conduct shall be punished on first conviction with imprisonment of either description for a term which may extend to five years and with fine which may extend to 10 lakh rupees.
The tape that was aired by the channel had evidently edited out certain portions of the conversation. The conversation of the women at the other end was not aired at all. Meanwhile, the High Court on Monday said that it will consider the anticipatory bail pleas by the nine accused on Thursday.