Monday, December 20 2004 16:38 Hrs (IST) - World Time

New Delhi: National Association of Software and Service Companies (NASSCOM) on Monday (Dec 20, 2004) condemned the arrest of e-commerce portal Baazee.com's CEO Avnish Bajaj in the Delhi Public School MMS scandal.

"We condemn the arrest. We are extremely dismayed at what has happened (the arrest of Bajaj)," Nasscom president Kiran Karnik said on the sidelines of a conference organised by TiE (The Indus Entrepreneurs).

The way Bajaj was arrested displayed the draconian approach of law enforcement agencies when the company had offered full cooperation in investigating as to how the MMS clip came up for sale at the portal.

"It (the arrest) in not a good sign. The State needs to correct itself. We (Nasscom) will do everything we can to get him released. We are not going into the merits of the case but he should not have been arrested in this way," Karnik said.

Karnik said the arrest was uncalled for and not expected in a matured democracy like ours.

Xansa India chairman Saurabh Srivastava said the arrest of Bajaj was a knee-jerk reaction of police when the portal was willing to fully cooperate in the investigation.

"What was the need to arrest Bajaj," he asked. "Such cases have happened in other countries and we must look at precedents to deal with the case," Srivastava said.

As portals like Baazee.com are new to India, precedents to deal with it will evolve over time. In other countries e-commerce sites are liable to remove the objectionable sale offer within 24 hours of notice, he said.

Srivastava said if the liability of e-commerce site on issues like these was not defined it would have a huge impact on the business.