Peshawar High Court (PHC) on Tuesday issued a release order for a chartered accountant on bail who was charged with creating a fake account on Facebook in the name of a girl and uploading objectionable videos on it.
A single bench of Justice Syed Afsar Shah issued the release order on bail after hearing both parties and the state lawyer.
The Federal Investigation Agency (FIA), Cyber Crimes Wing, had charged the chartered accountant, Kashif, on a complaint of a junior woman employee, under sections 36 and 37 of the Electronics Transition Ordinance ETO 2002.
Section 36 of ETO 2002 penalizes the violation of privacy with imprisonment of up to seven years whereas Section 37 penalizes the damage to information system with imprisonment of up to seven years.
During hearing of the bail petition, the petitioner’s lawyer submitted before the bench that the petitioner was working as a chartered accountant in Peshawar.
He submitted that the FIA had wrongly charged the petitioner under sections 36 and 37 of the ETO, as he neither made a fake account of girl nor uploaded her videos of the complainant he obtained from CCTV cameras in the office.
The lawyer said that the petitioner had only sent videos to the complainant on her email for blackmailing as charged in section 507 of PPC (sexual harassment at workplaces). He requested the court to release the petitioner on bail.