Justice G Chandrasekharan directed the Tamil Nadu government and the crime branch, CID, metro wing of the Chennai police to respond to the petition filed by the company PlayGames 24×7 by March 14.
The petitioner-company told the Court that it had received a notice from the crime branch last year informing it that an inquiry under Section 174 of the Criminal Procedure Code (CrPC) was being conducted to probe the death of one Manikandan, who had died of suicide on January 2, 2022 allegedly after playing the online game.
On February 24 this year, the crime branch sent another notice to the petitioner informing that it had been charged under Section 302 of the Indian Penal Code for Manikandan’s death. The crime branch asked the company’s official to appear before it and also sought several documents and other information from them.
However, despite having cooperated with crime branch’s probe throughout, the respondent probe agency has been constantly harassing it and its employees, PlayGames told the Court.
It further said that the crime branch was demanding totally irrelevant information and on a very short notice.
The crime branch was sending emails to the company and repeated reminder messages on WhatsApp to its employee and also asking for confidential information relating to its operations and also personal information about key managerial personnel, PlayGames told the Court.
Source: Barandbench
