ORDER :

Prayer: This Criminal Original Petition has been filed to call for the records in C.C.No.5311 of 2020 pending before the Hon'ble Special Court for CCB & CBCID Cases, Egmore and quash the same.

This petition is to quash the final report in C.C.No.5311 of 2020 for the alleged offences under Sections 420 IPC and 66 D of Information Technology Act, 2000.

2.It is alleged in the charge sheet that the petitioners 1 and 2 started a partnership firm by name Future Stacks for website development in 2016; that they were involved in development of Real Time Online Food Ordering Application; that while so, the third petitioner approached the second petitioner for developing a new online liquor ordering application http://try-tasmac.web.app/ and decided to sell liquor online to the general public; that the second and third petitioners requested the first petitioner to develop an online liquor selling App; that the petitioners intentionally created web based application by name http://trytasmac.web.app/without obtaining official permission or tender permission order from TASMAC and used the TASMAC logo, brand name and intentionally circulated it as a genuine web application in online social media platform which got more than 15000 links in a day and caused web traffic; that due to the said impersonated application, the general public believed it as a web application developed by the TASMAC and tried to order liquor online; that TASMAC received lot of calls; that as a result of this web application by misusing the name of TASMAC, the petitioners got more web traffic to their company namely Future Stacks and thereby, it increased their business; and hence, the petitioners are liable for the aforesaid offences.

3. Mr.P.H.Manoj Pandian, the learned Senior counsel for the petitioners submitted that the petitioners, inspired by the suggestion made by this Court in a writ petition, that liquor could be supplied online, wanted to develop a demo web app “TASMAC” so that, it can be pitched to the Tamil Nadu Government owned “TASMAC”. They created this beta version (trial version) of the App with the TASMAC logo, brand name and deployed it to Google's test hosting web application server for sandbox testing under the URL htts://try-tasmac.web.app. The learned senior counsel submitted that it was only a trial version and it is a standard practice in the Information Technology and Design Industries to use the client's logo; that this was not intended to deceive anyone and in any event, there is no evidence to show that because of the representation, even assuming it to be false, there was any wrongful loss to any person or wrongful gain to the petitioners. The learned senior counsel relied upon the following Judgments:

(i) Vijay Kumar Ghai and others vs. State of West Bengal and others reported in (2022) 7 SCC 124.

(ii) International Advanced Research Centre for Powder Metallurgy and New Materials (ARCI) and others vs. Nimra Cerglass Technics Private Ltd and another reported in (2016) 1 SCC 348.

(iii) Paul F. Morris vs. State represented by Inspector of Police reported in 2016 SCC Online Mad 33715

(iv) Sushil Sethi and another vs. State of Arunachal Pradesh and others reported in (2020) 3 SCC 240.

4. Mr.Leonard Arul Joseph Selvam, learned Government Advocate (Crl.Side) appearing for the first respondent would submit that the petitioners had deliberately and willfully used the TASMAC logo without any authorization; that because of the petitioner's act, the TASMAC Department had received a number of calls from general public and were put to hardship and embarrassment. Further, because of the false and fabricated web application, they got more web traffic to their company and thereby, increased their business and they had gained wrongfully and hence, the offences are made out.

5. Mr.K.Sathish Kumar, learned standing counsel for the defacto complainant/respondent would submit that because of the unauthorised web link created by the petitioners, the gene