Kochi: The Kerala Police registered an FIR against state IAS official N.Prasanth for sending inappropriate stickers over WhatsApp to a woman journalist while she reached out to him for an official reaction.

A case has been registered in the incident, which happened in February this year after obtaining legal advice on the issue.

"We have registered a case under Section 509 of the Indian Penal Code," police said.

The section deals with the offence of insulting the modesty of any woman, utters any word, makes any sound or gesture, or exhibits any object, intending that such a word or sound shall be heard, or that such gesture or object shall be seen, by such woman, or intrudes upon the privacy of such woman.

The incident took place before the April 6 assembly polls when the opposition was going hammer and tongs against the ruling Pinarayi Vijayan government over a contract between the Kerala Shipping and Inland Navigation Corporation and a private player for handing over rights of fishing and building boats.

Prasanth was the managing director of the Corporation and the journalist had called on his mobile but after getting no response she sent a message asking for his comments on the issue.

The reporter from a vernacular daily texted Prasanth introducing herself and sought a reply on the controversy. In the screenshots of the WhatsApp messages that were circulated, the journalist could be seen asking whether it was a good time to talk regarding a news story.

To this Prasanth replied with just a sticker. When she replied saying the story was not to harm him, and asked him to give a statement regarding the controversy, he replied with an inappropriate and obscene sticker.

A complaint was filed with the police by the Kerala Union of Working Journalists (KUWJ).

The state government later in May had ordered a probe against the 2007 batch IAS officer for his alleged misbehaviour.

Now with non-bailable charges being put up, the probe team will summon Prasanth.

Prasanth already is feeling the heat as he is alleged to have aggravated the issue between the Corporation and the private company that had agreed to go forward with the deal. The opposition took it up in a big way, causing hiccups to Vijayan who had to fight tooth and nail to clear the charges. Then Fisheries Minister J. Mercykutty was forced to bite the dust, when she lost in the assembly polls, after the Congress unleashed a huge campaign against her linking the deal between the Corporation and the private player.

(With inputs from PTI and IANS)