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Synopsis

The Madras High Court on Tuesday granted leave to the Crime Branch-Criminal Investigation Department (CB-CID) to appeal the acquittal of YouTuber 'Savukku' Shankar in a case involving the alleged theft of electronic data from the Directorate of Vigilance and Anti-Corruption (DVAC) office in 2008.

The bench of Justice M. Nirmal Kumar allowed an application filed by the prosecution in 2017 seeking permission to appeal a verdict by a sessions court tabled on February 24, 2017.

The YouTuber, accused of committing the crime while serving as a special assistant in the DVAC's confidential section at its newly constructed Raja Annamalaipuram office in Chennai in 2008, allegedly acted out of frustration over being denied a promotion to Assistant Section Officer, according to the prosecution.

Following a complaint filed by Home Secretary S. Malathi on July 17, 2008, the CB-CID had booked Savukku under Sections 66, 70, and 72 of the Information Technology Act, 2000.

CB-CID claimed that in 2008, N. Vijayarajan, the legal advisor to DVAC, had his office on the ground floor of the same building. Seizing the opportunity during Vijayarajan's absence on April 1, 2008, the YouTuber allegedly accessed his computer and transferred audio files onto a pen drive labeled 'Sujatha'. One of the files allegedly contained a conversation between then DVAC Director S.K. Upadhyay and then Chief Secretary L.K. Tripathy, which was subsequently published in a newspaper and telecast on a Tamil TV news channel on April 14, 2008.

In the trial, the Additional Sessions Court held that the prosecution had not proved the guilt beyond reasonable doubt.

Despite the CB-CID filing an appeal against the verdict on June 9, 2017, along with a petition requesting court permission to do so, progress remained stagnant until March of this year.