Delhi Court dismisses bail plea in cyber fraud case

Delhi Court dismisses bail plea in cyber fraud case

The three accused were charged with duping gullible youngsters by running a fake government job portal

A Delhi court last week denied bail to three persons accused of defrauding thousands through fake government job portals after expressing its grave concern over the increasing incidents of cyber fraud.

Additional Sessions Judge Dharmender Rana dismissed the bail pleas of Tushar Nayyar, Anurag Chugh and Suraj Verma, arrested by the Cyber Crime Cell of Delhi Police in February this year.

"Incidents of cyber fraud are on the rise. The modus operandi of the accused/applicants persons in the instant case suggests meticulous planning and deft execution. The applicants are reported to be involved in cheating 2000 innocent people in the name of GeM (Government e-Marketplace) registration," the Court observed while junking the bail pleas of the accused.

The accused denied any wrongdoing submitting that they ran a call center and merely made available forms to government jobs for a fee.

According to lawyer Vikas Sharma, who represented the accused in the court, they made a website wherein forms related to government jobs were made available for the job aspirants. It was submitted that if aspirants wanted to apply for the said job, they had to give commission to the call center for providing the forms.

it was further submitted that the call center had appointed a Chartered Accountant to look after business transactions and pay taxes to the government on the earnings derived from the commission from such transactions. The lawyer claimed that his clients were falsely accused in a fake case and made to languish in jail since their arrests.

The prosecution, however, vehemently opposed the bail applications of the accused saying they had been cheating gullible unemployed youth on the pretext of registering them for government jobs.

Additional Public Prosecutor Irfan Ahmed submitted that they cheated more than 2,000 innocent people in the name of GeM registration by creating a website appearing identical to a GeM portal that ran a slide claiming "This is a self-registration portal for GeM registration".

The youth, believing it to be an official website, paid the registration fees to the accused who were unauthorized for the registration purposes.

The Delhi Police Cyber Crime Cell had busted the gang in February this year. The police said that the gang charged ₹3,000 for registration and had cheated thousands of people through the fake website, while registration on government sites is free.

"Considering the seriousness of allegations and nature of the offense, I am of the considered opinion that the applicants/accused persons do not deserve the indulgence of the court. All three bail applications stand dismissed," the Court ruled.