Former CFO at Reliance Brands booked for ‘stealing firm data’

GURGAON: A former chief financial officer (CFO) at Reliance Brands Limited was booked on Tuesday for allegedly stealing financial data and operating plans of a company with ties to the retail firm.
An FIR was registered against Binit Agarwalla under Section 66 of the IT Act at the Cyber Crime (East) police station. The Reliance Brands management has alleged that the former executive, a resident of Gurgaon, stole data from the office’s computer and sent it to his personal email ID in April last year. The data contained annual operating plans of a partner firm from 2022 to 2027, said the complainant, Reliance Brands financial manager Sanjeev Vashista.
Neither Agarwalla nor Vashista could be reached for comment on Wednesday evening. According to the complaint, the executive joined the company on July 13, 2021 and was managing three prominent brands that have a partnership with Reliance Brands.
“During the course of his employment with the company, the accused was involved in sending internal strategic documents of the Mothercare brand to his personal email address. Taking undue advantage of his position, the accused engineered a way to misuse the trust and resources bestowed upon him as the CFO of the business of the company,” the complaint read.
The complaint stated Reliance Brands was alerted about the email on April 28, 2022, a few days after the Agarwalla allegedly forwarded the document.
“Our internal risk management team on April 28, 2022, highlighted that on April 25, 2022, the accused had exported an excel file containing an annual operating plan for the business. It contained activities that the company was planning to undertake and financial details of the business for the current financial 2022-2023 and the upcoming financial years till 2026-2027,” the FIR reads.
The company told TOI it took a year to conduct an internal inquiry.
“Owing to our robust systems, we were able to promptly detect the fraudulent activity and effectively mitigate its potential impact. This individual was still an employee when this incident took place, following which we terminated his services,” a company spokesperson said at n Wednesday. The firm said it has submitted Agarwalla’s statement to police for further investigation.
“The accused will be contacted soon. Action will be taken after proper investigation,” said Jasvir, SHO at cyber crime police station. .