Bombay High Court dismisses FIR against engineer held in 2021 for threatening Virat Kohli’s daughter

The Bombay High Court has dismissed the FIR (First Information Report) filed against software engineer Ramnagesh Akubathini for threatening former India skipper Virat Kohli and Bollywood actor Anushka Sharma's daughter. The engineer was arrested in November 2021 for allegedly putting out threatening tweets targeting the duo's young daughter following India's loss to arch-rivals Pakistan in the T20 World Cup match in 2021.

The FIR had been dismissed after complainant, Kohli's manager Aquillia D'Souza, requested not to proceed with the charges against Akubathini. She informed the court that Akubathini had written to her on April 5, requesting that the couple accedes to the quashing of the FIR. After being pleased with the sincerity of the request, Kohli and Anushka had asked D'Souza to provide a "no-objection".

The order was passed by a division bench of Justice Ajey S Gadkari and Justice Prakash D Naik in a criminal application by Akubathini, an IIT Hyderabad graduate from Telangana. Akubathini had pleaded in February 2022 to quash the FIR as the continuation of criminal proceedings would have jeopardised his career, him being a meritorious student and a JEE (Advanced) exam rank holder.

The plea, made by counsel Abhijeet Desai and Karan Gajra, stated that Akubathini had been interning with reputable organizations and had no criminal history so far. They stated that the pending FIR would make it difficult for him to seek a master's degree abroad or pursue other opportunities. Further, it was stated that there is no concrete evidence to indicate that the tweets originated from the IP address of Akubathini's device. 

Akubathini was arrested for acts punishable by sections 354 (outraging modesty), 506 (criminal intimidation), 500 (defamation), and 201 (disappearance of evidence) of the Indian Penal Code, as well as provisions of the Information Technology Act on November 8, 2021.

The Bandra magistrate court had remanded him in police detention until November 16 and then send him to judicial custody. On November 21, 2021, the magistrate granted him bail recognizing that the tweets were not specifically directed at the cricketer or his family.