After spending 13 years in prison in a cyber porn case, city-based doctor L. Prakash on Saturday walked free from Puzhal central jail after the Madras High Court modified the life sentence awarded by a lower court and imposed a fine of Rs. 1.19 lakh.
A Division Bench comprising Justices S. Tamilvanan and C.T. Selvam in its order on Friday said though that the doctor stood convicted as held by a fast-track court in 2008, the sentence of imprisonment was modified to the period he already underwent in prison.
The doctor was arrested in 2001 on charges of taking obscene pictures of his patients and posting them on the internet and was eventually convicted by a court in 2008 for offences under Information Technology Act, Immoral Trafficking Act, Indecent Representation of Women Act and the Arms Act. Though he was sentenced for various cases, the maximum of life sentence was awarded under Immoral Trafficking (Prevention) Act, 1956 and he served all the sentences concurrently.
Held under IT Act
The case was also said to be one of the first few cases in the country tried under the Information Act, which was passed in 2000.
The doctor who had a clinic in Anna Nagar detained girls and sexually exploited them in his farm houses and posted their obscene pictures on the Internet, according to the prosecution. He also threatened a girl with a revolver, when she resisted his attempts. Observing that the doctor has been in prison for more than 13 years and three months of the sentence, the Bench partly allowed his criminal appeal against the conviction of the fast-track court.
The High Court had earlier acquitted the doctor from a case booked against him under the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act.
Madras High Court modified the life sentence awarded by a lower court
