Hrithik Roshan's imposter: Police moves court for notice to US firm over details of his email id

An application has been filed by Mumbai police before a local court seeking issuance of notice to authorities at Mail and Media Inc regarding information about an email ID allegedly created by an imposter in the name of Bollywood actor Hrithik Roshan.

On March 25, Hrithik had registered a complaint with the cyber crime cell in suburban BKC here claiming that the ID 'hroshan.email.com' has been generated by an imposter and that the person was using it to communicate with his fans and others.

Hrithik had lodged the complaint after actress Kangana Ranaut at filmmaker Karan Johar's birthday party in May 2014 thanked Hrithik for appreciating her work in the film Queen. When Hrithik told her he had not seen the movie, Kangana told him that she had received an email from him from the 'hroshan.email.com' ID and that she has been corresponding on the email ID since several months.

Hrithik then denied having any such email address and said his ID was hroshan@mac.com. Kangana, who has fallen out with Hrithik, later forwarded all the email sent and received by her from the 'hroshan.email.com' ID.

Acting on Hrithik's complaint, the cyber crime cell on March 18 sent a letter to the Chief Technical Officer of Mail and Media Inc. which runs 'email.com' seeking information about the said account. The Chief Technical Officer replied to the police and asked them to contact the company's legal department at 'legalnotice@mail.com'.

Accordingly, police sent a letter on March 31 to the legal department which stated in a reply that "We require subpoena from a court to release such account information. If you are able to provide such document please address it as follows." The cyber cell then filed the application before the metropolitan magistrate on April 18 requesting it to issue a notice to the company situated in Pennsylvania, US, under section 91 of the Criminal Procedure Code (CrPC) directing it to produce the said information.

"If the court does not issue the notice then the police will not be able to probe the complaint further due to lack of information," the application filed by Cyber Crime Cell police inspector Kalpana Gadekar said.

Hrithik and Kangana are embroiled in a legal spat wherein both the actors have slapped legal notices on each other for defamation. While Hrithik had claimed that Kangana was making false claims that they were in a relationship, Kangana said they shared personal as well as professional relationship.