Creating an email address using another person’s name does not amount to identity theft under the Information Technology Act, the Allahabad High Court has ruled, granting relief to two men accused of using such an account to circulate fabricated grievances.
In an order issued on September 1, a division bench comprising Justice Abdul Moin and Justice Pramod Kumar Srivastava halted proceedings under a First Information Report registered on July 23. The court observed that Indian law contains no restriction prohibiting an individual from registering an email address in the name of someone else, concluding that the alleged conduct did not prima facie attract identity theft provisions.
Scope of Section 66C
The case centered on allegations that the two petitioners established an email account under a third party’s name and deployed it to transmit misleading communications and complaints to various recipients, including the Lokayukta. The state government, represented by advocate Ashish Gautam, argued that intentionally creating an email address in another person’s name to distribute fake petitions amounted to using that person’s unique identification feature, thereby violating Section 66C of the Information Technology Act.
The high court rejected that interpretation, explaining that Parliament deliberately restricted Section 66C to the fraudulent or dishonest use of an electronic signature, password, or unique identification feature. Because the statutory provision does not list an email address, and setting up an account involves neither a password nor an electronic signature belonging to the other person, the bench held that the charge could not stand.
Challenge to Criminal Defamation
Advocates Anuj Dayal and Ankit Kumar Trivedi, appearing for the petitioners, maintained that registering the account did not constitute misappropriating any unique credential under the cyber law.
The defense also challenged the inclusion of criminal defamation in the police case, citing the Supreme Court judgment in Subramanian Swamy v. Union of India to argue that defamation proceedings must ordinarily originate as a direct complaint filed by an aggrieved party before a magistrate, rather than through a police-registered FIR.
