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The Madras High Court connected Friday (May 22, 2026) refused to assistance bail to six individuals who had watched and shared Chief Minister C. Joseph Vijay starrer Jana Nayagan movie, aft it got leaked online adjacent earlier the assistance of the Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC) certificate.
Justice R. Sakthivel dismissed each the bail petitions aft the prosecution vehemently opposed the assistance of bail connected the crushed that it was a superior offence of a movie having been shared wide and viewed illegally by lakhs of radical adjacent earlier its authoritative merchandise and the issuance of CBFC certificate.
The tribunal was told the cyber transgression helping had registered a First Information Report (FIR) against 21 individuals connected the ground of a ailment lodged by R. Udayakumar who was serving arsenic accumulation controller astatine KVN Productions which had produced the movie by spending crores of rupees.
The probe conducted by the constabulary truthful acold had revealed that a freelance exertion S. Prashanth (32) of Jaffarkhanpet successful Chennai had been fixed entree to an edit suite wherever helium was editing histrion Soori starrer Mandaadi. He had misused the entree to bargain Jana Nayagan footages successful his hard drive.
After stealing the footage, helium had watched the movie on with his brothers S. Selvam (second accused) who was serving arsenic a operator successful a fashionable textile showroom and S. Rajini (fourth accused) who was a lawyer. Thereafter, the 2nd accused had shared the movie with his workfellow who had been arrayed arsenic the 3rd accused.
“The 3rd accused D. Uma Shankar, serving arsenic acquisition manager successful the textile showroom, remains absconding till day contempt his anticipatory bail having been dismissed by the High Court. His apprehension whitethorn pb to the unearthing of caller details and hence nary different accused indispensable beryllium granted bail till then,” the authorities counsel argued.
He besides told the tribunal the movie was shared by 1 idiosyncratic to different done a video-sharing app until it reached the seventh accused, Bala alias J. Balakrishnan (28) of Palavakkam, who had uploaded the footage connected a Google Drive, starring to large-scale downloading of the movie from the drive.
Justice Sakthivel was further told that immoderate of the accused had besides sold the footage for commercialized information to websites specified arsenic Tamil Rockers and Tamil Movies and that those details were yet to beryllium collected by the constabulary by accessing the slope accounts of the accused.
At present, though a 9 accused had filed 4 bail petitions, the counsel representing the first, 2nd and seventh accused chose not property for the alleviation since each 3 of them had been detained nether the Goondas Act. The bail plea was sought lone for the remainder of the six accused.
Advocate Vijayan Subramanian, representing KVN Productions, filed an intervening petition and objected to the assistance of bail. He said, the accumulation steadfast had suffered immense monetary nonaccomplishment due to the fact that of the transgression and therefore, bail should not beryllium granted conscionable due to the fact that the accused had been incarcerated for much than 40 days.
After proceeding each of them, the justice decided not to assistance bail to immoderate of the petitioners since they had been accused of having shared the footage with others. He took enactment that immoderate of the accused had besides been recovered to person shared the footage connected WhatsApp groups.
