Mumbai man gets two-year jail term in cheating case

CHANDIGARH: A local court has awarded two-year jail term to a Mumbai resident guilty in eight-year-old cheating case. The accused had hacked the email ID of a Chandigarh-based company in 2011, and transferred 12,900 US dollars into his account. The court imposed a fine of Rs 2,000 on the accused.
The matter dates back to December 26, 2011 when the accused was booked by the police under Section 66 D of the IT Act and sections 420 and 120B of the Indian Penal Code (IPC). The accused identified as Satyanarayan Sahu was arrested on January 2, 2012. He belongs to Bihar but was staying in Mumbai. Jagdish Kohli, the second accused in the case and a resident of Mumbai, has been declared a proclaimed offender.
On December 10, 2011, Darshan Singh, chief executive officer of the company, had lodged a complaint with the police. It was stated that he runs Khosla Machines Private Limited having its office in Sector 16 which was engaged in design development, manufacture and sale of packaging machines within India and foreign markets. It was mentioned that the company had booked an order of sale of packaging machine to customer by the name of Vanguard Soap, US. Against the order, the customer was to remit an advance of 12,900 US dollars for which company had given its bank details for wire transfer of funds. They received a copy of transfer on October 5 intimating transfer of funds to city bank accounts, but which actually never happened. It was alleged someone hacked the personal email ID of Sunil Kumar Bhardwaj, company manager (exports) advising the customer to remit the payment in a bank account in Mumbai. "As a result of this fraud, our advance payment of 12,900 US dollars and balance payment of 25,800 US dollars got blocked," the complaint alleged.
In another incident, the company was to receive 98,888.89 US dollars from a company in Bangladesh as consultancy fee for machines supplied to them for which bank details were shared with them to transfer funds, But in same manner, the email id of manager, spares (sales), was hacked and funds were diverted to a bank account in Mumbai.
During investigation it was revealed that the account where the funds were diverted belonged to Mumbai resident Sahu. He along with his accomplice Jagdish Kohli conspired to cheat and dupe the company.
Defence counsel Vinod K Verma argued that the accused was falsely implicated as the complainant's statement was never recorded in the court. Also, the statement of the US company which had send the funds, was not recorded. The counsel said there was no recovery in the matter and no bank official came on record during the trial.