Cyber expert cop panel told to probe defamatory emails

Mumbai: The Bombay high court  has directed the Mumbai police to constitute an expert team of cyber crime officers to probe allegations of defamatory emails received by a subsidiary company of Tata Motors. It also directed the Mumbai police commissioner to submit its report on May 22.

A vacation bench, presided over by Justice S. J. Kathawalla, was hearing a suit filed last year by the Tata Motors Insurance Broking & Advisory Services (TMIBASL), a subsidiary company of Tata Motors. As per the suit, for over a year now, senior TMIBASL officials and other group companies, have been receiving emails from several 'fictitious' email addresses containing "slanderous and defamatory" allegations against the company, its CEO and other TMIBASL officials.

In a hearing conducted last week, TMIBASL informed the court that recently, similar emails were also sent to the official email address of the Delhi Police Commissioner.  The city police’s cyber cell informed the court that it had written to Google India for assistance, and was yet to receive details of all the email addresses that were being used.