The Allahabad high court, Lucknow Bench, questioned the police action of arresting 119 people in an alleged international cyber fraud case before establishing through background investigation how the call centre was involved in defrauding US citizens.
Granting bail to call-centre employee Mehul Jangid, Justice Manish Mathur observed that the police appeared to have “worked backwards” by first conducting a raid and making arrests and then pursuing the investigation. The bail release order was passed on September 9.
The court said the approach could amount to a “fishing expedition” and noted that the seriousness of cyber fraud placed a greater responsibility on the police to identify and arrest the actual perpetrators.
The case was registered at the Cyber Crime police station in Lucknow East over allegations that a call centre operating from Summit Building, Gomti Nagar, was targeting US citizens through identity theft and financial fraud.
According to the FIR, police received information from an informer around 10 pm on June 30 about the alleged illegal call centre and immediately raided the premises. They arrested 119 people, including 92 men and 27 women, and seized 103 laptops, 68 iPhones, 109 Android phones, 116 headphones, 111 laptop chargers, 99 computer mice, a biometric attendance machine and eight routers.
The FIR alleged that the call centre used dialler applications, international calling numbers and forged documents and emails impersonating US companies and government agencies to extract money from US citizens seeking consumer redressal.
Advocate Gaurav Shukla, appearing for Jangid, argued that his client was merely an employee and had no role in managing the call centre.
The court noted that the record did not indicate any background investigation after the police received the information. It also pointed out that no complaint had been lodged by any US citizen, company or government organisation whose identity was allegedly stolen.
“The FIR also does not indicate how the said persons or organisations were defrauded by the applicants, either individually or collectively,” Justice Mathur observed.
The court noted that the FIR primarily attributed day-to-day management to Vikram Singh Parmar and Lalit, who allegedly identified themselves as manager and operations manager. Charles and Vineet Sharma were identified as alleged beneficiaries of the operations.
Jangid had no previous criminal history and had been in custody since July 2. Taking note of bail granted to co-accused with similar roles, the court said there did not appear to be any complicity of Jangid in the allegations at the bail stage, subject to evidence emerging during trial.
The court allowed bail, without commenting on the merits of the case. Jangid was directed to furnish a personal bond of ₹20,000 and two sureties of the same amount.
The Lucknow bench had granted bail to four persons arrested in the case on August 19, the first such bail in the matter.
