MUMBAI: The wrongful arrest and the 50-day incarceration of an innocent software professional on charges he uploaded offensive pictures of Shivaji on Orkut were probably the result of a wrong internet timestamp and has raised concern over the over-dependence of police on Internet Protocol (IP) addresses as evidence in online crimes, cyber experts said.

A couple of months ago, Lakshmana Kailash K was arrested, denied bail and given a taste of harsh prison life at Yerawada as the IP details given to police by his internet service provider, Bharti Airtel, matched his user identity.

It later emerged that they had the wrong man. Police confirmed the faux pas and Mr Kailash was released.

Now, the professional has sent legal notices to Bharti, police and government officials claiming damages for the agony he went through.

Sunil Phulari, the DCP with the cyber crime cell Pune said, "Nothing went wrong in the investigation. It was carried out according to the legal procedures. I cannot speak for Airtel."

In the meantime, a Bharti spokesperson said, "We are cooperating with the authorities to provide all information related to this case and are deeply concerned by the difficulty caused to Mr Kailash due to this unfortunate incident."

"The company has always and continues to deploy the best technology and robust internal processes, which are continuously enhanced and made more stringent," he added.

He said, "However, given that the matter is subjudice, we would be unable to comment any further at this stage."

While IP addresses are a valuable tool to track online criminals, the police or the judiciary should not use it as an unarguable truth as it is easy to go wrong with it, experts said.

"This is a good case as every ISP will wake up to the fact that a small negligence could ruin someone's life," Asian School for Cyber Laws president Rohas Nagpal told ET.

While there are tools and sites that enable one to spoof IP address and deflect attention to the wrong person, a proper IP address can also prove futile and dangerous if it has the wrong time stamp on it.

IP addresses are a unique set of numbers that identify a given computer at a given time in the online world. However, ISPs often dynamically assign IP to various users.

This means the same address can be applied to different users as the day progresses. So, if the police go wrong on the time of usage, the wrong person could be condemned.

"The police would have taken a certain IP address and point of time. As it is dynamic, there must have been a confusion of the time," in the Shivaji controversy, Naa Vijayashankar, cyber law expert and founder of naavi.org, said.

Mr Vijayashankar alluded to a case involving Bharat Sanchar Nigam (BSNL) five years ago, when the service provider gave police an IP address without specifying that the time was recorded in GMT.