To
Mr Pramod Mahajan
Honourable Minister,
Ministry of Information Technology
Government of India
New Delhi

Reg: Arrest of IT Personnel

Dear Sir,

I draw your kind attention to the recent case in New Delhi where the Police arrested two directors of a Web designing Company namely Softweb Solutions Inc, following a complaint from Mr Gupta of go2nextjob.com.

It was apparent to any common man that here was a dispute between a service provider and a client regarding non payment of money towards the services rendered.  However, in an exhibition of misplaced enthusiasm, the Police appear to have erroneously booked a case of "hacking" and arrested two of the directors of Softweb.

The arrested persons have now been released on bail after being held in Tihar jail for six days. The trauma and agony caused to the arrested persons and their family during these days cannot be compensated.

This arrest done under a gross mis interpretation of the provisions of the Information Technology Act-2000, highlights the fact that the technical complexities of the Information Technology Act would create many more such situations. In a case of this nature, the need to arrest the persons involved at the trial stage is highly debatable.

In another recent incident in Chennai and Bangalore involving an alleged Copyright violation at Radiant Software Ltd, two branch managers were arrested by the police and held in custody even after all the Computers involved in the compalint had been seized. This shows an increasing tendency of the Police to "Arrest" IT workers on flimsy and some times wrong grounds.

In the interest of the people working in the Industry, I request you to kindly take it up with the Home Ministry to prevent the  Police  resorting to arrest of IT personnel without proper attention from senior Police officials.

This is a necessary service which your ministry owes to the workers of an industry that has made India a global force.

Thanking You