JUDGMENT

Ashok Kumar Verma, J. (Oral)

The petitioner has filed the present petition under Section 438 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973 for grant of anticipatory bail in case FIR No.45 dated 19.09.2022 registered under Sections 420 and 120B of Indian Penal Code, 1860 and Section 66 -C and 66-D of the Information Technology Act, 2000 at Police Station Punjab Cyber Crime, District SAS Nagar, Mohali.

2. The above-said FIR was registered on the complaint made by Pardeep Kumar Verma authorized signatory for M/s Teleperformance Global Services Private Limited against employees for performing unauthorized actions, manipulating the client portals for creating fraudulent return requests and taking refunds for self/relatives/friends' account, without any calls/request from the customers, misusing the systems and computers provided to them for performing their work obligations.

3. M/s Teleperformance Global Services Private Limited is engaged in business of providing outsourcing services to its various clients including reputed E-commerce Companies (Clients) wherein out call center employees (agents) handle and address and customer order placed/return requests/payments related queries and therefore have access to its portal and other information like customer's sensitive data. On 21.04.2022, two fraudulent transactions of Rs.1,59,848/- where 2 "Refund Don't expect returns" were created using the Smart Assist ID of Aman Kaur. Upon further investigation, it was identified that employee from IJS queue Arshdeep Garg did the fraudulent transactions and took the refund of Rs.1,59,848/-. On inquiry, Arshdeep Garg confessed that he created both the returns using the Smart Assist credentials of Aman Kaur. He also confessed that the mobile number 8054366584 under which the client account is registered belongs to him and the product was delivered to Ravinder Singh who was an employee in his father's trade business. The laptop used for playing the fraud belongs to his friend Pranshu Thakur, who is a friend and room mate of Arshdeep Garg. The refund was credited back to the source account and the customer Ravinder Singh transferred Rs.65,000/- to Arshdeep Singh's bank account and Rs.52,000/- to Pranshu Thakur. In the internal investigation of the company, the amount misappropriated was came to light as Rs.1,59,848/-. However, the actual number of transactions in which the suspected employee may be involved is not known and which may only be unearthed with the intervention of State Investigating Agency and it was requested that action should be taken.

4. A preliminary inquiry was taken into consideration. The representatives of the company as well as accused employees were called to join the enquiry. They joined their inquiry and tendered their statements. On careful scrutiny of the information provided by the representatives of the company and ex-employees of the company, it has been observed that complainant company is engaged in the business of providing outsourcing services to various reputed E-commerce companies which also includes Flipkart. The alleged fraudulent transactions are related with the refund of the amount of the products purchased from Flipkart company only and the employees of the complainant-company deal with the customers of Flipkart Company only. As per record of complainant company, the refund requests under heading "Don't expect returns" in the portal were fraudulently raised by the employees and thereafter refunded amount was transferred to the accounts of employees or someone known to the employees. As per statements of ex-employees, the credentials of their login ID and password which were used to gain access of the portal