New Delhi: The Himachal Pradesh high court has quashed a criminal case against a journalist who sought to check whether false names could be used to generate COVID-19 e-passes for inter-state movement by getting passes for ‘Amitabh Bachchan’ and ‘Donald Trump.’
LiveLaw has reported that a bench of Justice Vivek Singh Thakur observed that journalist Aman Kumar Bhardwaj was “neither dishonest nor fraudulent” in the generation of e-passes.
“[These] otherwise could not have been used by any person, the petitioner brought it to the notice of concerned authorities and persons,” the high court said.
An FIR had been registered against Bhardwaj under sections 419 (cheating by personation), 468 (forgery for purpose of cheating), and 471 (using as genuine a forged document or electronic record) of the Indian Penal Code. He was also booked under Section 66(D) of the Information Technology Act, 2000, and Section 54 of Disaster Management Act, 2005.
LiveLaw reports that Bhardwaj sought to check the system under which the Himachal Pradesh government had been generating e-passes since April 25, 2021. In early May 2021, the state government imposed a curfew with COVID-19 cases rising and made such passes mandatory for inter-state movement.
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Bhardwaj was then working for Zee News and had filled two online forms under actor Amitabh Bachchan and former US president Donald Trump’s names. He allegedly used his own mobile number and Aadhaar details. Passes were then issued under these names by the government portal.
When he was booked by HP police, Bhardwaj moved high court saying that he had undertaken this exercise not to defraud anyone but to verify the working of the system of online registration and generation of passes.
Quashing the case against him, the court noted that he had not aimed at using the passes – which the state government had said would be generated after due verification – but at pointing out the system’s flaws.
“Petitioner had tried to raise alarm and warning to the authorities so as to improve the system to avoid disaster or to increase severity or magnitude of spread of Covid-19 Pandemic by restricting entry of unwanted persons in the State in terms of restrictions imposed by the State Government to take appropriate steps to improve in order to provide foolproof/flawless,” the high court said.
The Himachal Pradesh government ended the e-pass system on July 1, 2021.