CHANDIGARH: Refusing to buy the argument of a Panchkula chemist that he shared a large number of obscene videos and photographs with a WhatsApp group by mistake, the Punjab and Haryana high court has held that “the allegations are serious and should not be taken lightly”.The chemist, Amit Gupta, said in the lower court that a stranger took his mobile phone and sent the messages, and now he has admitted that he was the sender. “There are 65 videos or pictures, which could not have been forwarded at one click. It is not a case where the phone was tampered with or it was a malware. Recovery of the phone is to be effected,” justice Anita Chaudhary observed while dismissing the anticipatory-bail plea of the accused.The bail petition was dismissed on Monday but the detailed order came out on Thursday. The Panchkula police booked Gupta on August 31 under Section 509 (insult to the modesty of a woman) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) and Section 67-A of the Information and Technology Act, 2000. The main allegation is that 65-odd messages containing porn or obscene content were sent to a WhatsApp group of Panchkula, which had a large number of women. The petitioner tried many arguments—like the handset was not in his possession, or the messages were forwarded on account of a technical snag, or someone had played mischief. It was also argued that having learnt what kind of messages had gone, he had apologised to the group and deleted some of the content he could.The complainant argued that the videos were lascivious and obscene and it cannot be taken casually, considering that there were women in this group. Objecting to the bail petition, the police submitted that they needed to interrogate the chemist to recover the mobile phone from which the messages were sent.

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