Airtel punishment: Rs. 2 lakh for 50 days of jail
By Bala Shah

An Indian posts ‘insulting images’ of respected warrior-saint Shivaji on Google’s Orkut.  Indian police come knocking at Google’s gilded door demanding the IP address (IP uniquely identifies every computer in the world) which is the source of this negative image.  Google, India hands over the IP address. And then things go wrong.

No such incident in India would be complete without a few administrative slip-ups.  The computer with that IP address is using Airtel, India as the ISP to connect to the internet and Orkut.  An Airtel techie makes a grave error and gives police the name of an innocent person using a different IP address. 

An innocent man is jailed due to the mistake of one Airtel employee.   Even though it was only one person’s fault,   the whole of Airtel runs the risk of being tarred by the mistake of one person.

How does it Airtel react to rectify its mistake?

Firstly, with an immediate, unqualified apology.   In itself, a positive first step.

In 2008, Airtel issued the following statement to techgoss:

“Airtel are aware of this incident and deeply distressed by the severe inconvenience caused to the customer. We are fully cooperating with the authorities to provide all information in this regard and we are in touch with the customer. We have robust internal processes, which we review frequently to make them more stringent. We have conducted a thorough investigation of the matter and will take appropriate action”.

But Airtel did not try to work out an out of court settlement.

Bangalore Mirror is now reporting:

“
Almost two years after he was wrongly jailed for 50 nightmarish days, Lakshmana Kailash K, the 28-year-old Bangalore-based software engineer, has finally obtained some justice. Criticising the erroneous police investigation and the internet service providers misleading information, the State Human Rights Commission has ordered Airtel to pay Rs 2 lakh to Lakshmana as damages.

The commission noted that if at all Airtel had confusion over AM and PM, it could have sought particulars instead of providing wrong information.
“

The innocent techie had asked for Rs. 20 crore compensation but got only Rs. 2 lakh.

(Techgoss had run the following story on Feb 4, 2008)

Cops blame Bharti Airtel for techie jailing 
By Yasmin Ahmed

Techgoss had reported the story of the techie Lakshmana Kailas K being jailed wrongly because of a slip-up by Bharti Airtel in identifying an IP address from which a defamatory message was sent. The techie had since been released and in January slapped a mammoth million dollar law suit on the Telecom giant.

The Pune police have now come back with a reply saying that the police were not responsible, but has put the entire gamut of blame on Bharti Airtel. The five page reply by Netaji Shinde ACP (economic & cyber crime branch) says that Bharti Airtel had given him Lakshmana’s IP address on August 8, 2007 and the techie was arrested at noon on September 1, 2007. But the police had also approached Google for help in this case, and the email id from which the defamatory Orkut profile was created was given by Google later on as kiranreddygv@yahoo.co.in, and the police arrived at the inbox of Kiran Reddy, a techie at Convergys Company also at Bangalore. This was around October1, 2007. Kiran confessed to the allegation.

The police were now flabbergasted. How could two IP addresses create one profile? That could not be, so the police now went back to Airtel for clarification. It came to light then, that the first provided IP address had been totally wrong, and the second one provided on October 11, 2007 had been the correct one. But by that time an innocent man’s life had been changed forever.

Bharti's advocates Holla & Holla, state that their clients "deny there has been any negligence acts on their behalf resulting in any actionable claim". They will give a detailed reply later it seems.

Lakshmana is outraged and disturbed at the shilly-shallying of the Telecom giant! Quite natural! The way the Airtel have acted without responsibility and now don’t accept the blame either is enough to enrage anyone. The Police also say that with Airtel has been guilty of supplying sub-standard information to the police on more than one occasion.  In another case being looked at by the Hinjenwadi police station too, the Airtel had first given a wrong address, and then on investigation come up with the correct address.

Who cares if innocent lives are lost or destroyed in the process!

Techgoss note:  One would think that it would be easier for a multi-billion dollar company to apologize and compensate to put this embarrassing incident behind them.  Sadly, it seems they are being advised to stall in the hope of paying a smaller compensation.  Or worse, hoping the techie would get tired of court battles and just go away.

(Techgoss had run the following story in Jan, 2008)

Jailed Techie wants millions
By Yashmin Ahmed

Finally he has demanded that he be compensated for the injustice meted out to him! The illegally accused and detained techie in the Chatrapati Shivaji defamation picture case on Orkut, Lakshmana Kailas K, has slapped a ten page legal notice on Telecom giant Bharti Airtel, the Principal Secretary (Home) of the state government in Maharashtra, India and the Assistant Commissioner of Police (Financial & Cyber crime unit) demanding that an amount of 20 crores be paid as damages.

The software engineer has also sent a copy of the legal notice to the National Human rights commission. Lakshmana had spent a harrowing 50 days in police custody accused of a crime he had never committed just because an IP address sought by the police was wrongly supplied by Bharti Airtel. The legal notice smacks of his anger with the police and judiciary making a mockery of the rights of an individual and the pitiable conditions of the Yerwada jail where he was detained with a number of hardened criminals. He is reported to have been beaten by a lathi and asked to use the same bowl to eat and to use in the toilet.

(Techgoss had run the following story in Nov, 2007)

Airtel: compensation for IP mix-up?
By Bala Shah

An Indian posts ‘insulting images’ of respected warrior-saint Shivaji on Google’s Orkut.  Indian police come knocking at Google’s gilded door demanding the IP address (IP uniquely identifies every computer in the world) which is the source of this negative image.  Google, India hands over the IP address.

No such incident in India would be complete without a few administrative slip-ups.  The computer with that IP address is using Airtel, India as the ISP to connect to the internet and Orkut.  An Airtel techie makes a grave error and gives police the name of an innocent person using a different IP address. 

An innocent man is jailed due to the mistake of one Airtel employee.   Even though it was only one person’s fault,   the whole of Airtel runs the risk of being tarred by the mistake of one person.

How does it Airtel react to rectify its mistake?

Firstly, with an immediate, unqualified apology.   In itself, a positive first step.

Techgoss had heard rumors about Airtel also offering monetary compensation to the person wrongly jailed.   But Airtel is being coy about possible financial compensation.  An Airtel spokesperson issued the following statement to techgoss.com

“Airtel are aware of this incident and deeply distressed by the severe inconvenience caused to the customer. We are fully cooperating with the authorities to provide all information in this regard and we are in touch with the customer. We have robust internal processes, which we review frequently to make them more stringent. We have conducted a thorough investigation of the matter and will take appropriate action”.

Does this mean the customer will get compensation?  It is not clear either way.  Let’s wait and see.  It is interesting to see that despite the arrest he is still with Airtel.  Now that’s loyalty to your telecom company.