The court confirmed that sufficient evidence exists to proceed with charges under the Indian Telegraph Act and IPC for fraudulent activity regarding telephone billing.

O R D E R

The order dated 21.08.2015 of the Chief Judicial Magistrate Court, Ernakulam, disallowing the prayer of discharge of the accused in C.C No.53/2010 on the files of the said Court, is under challenge in this revision.

2. The final report in the said case was filed by the Inspector of Police, CBI, Kochi unit, alleging the commission of offence under Section 20 r/w 4 of the Indian Telegraph Act and Section 4 20 I.P.C. The allegation against the petitioner is that he cheated the BSNL by diverting ISD calls as local calls through the BSNL telephone connections availed by him, with the help of the software downloaded from the website of Hotfoon company, and induced BSNL to issue the telephone bills amounting to Rs.30,264/- as local call charges as against the actual tariff of Rs.2,61,967/-, which would have incurred as telephone charges for the ISD calls diverted.

3. In the present petition, the petitioner would contend that he is totally innocent and that none of the offences alleged by the prosecution are attracted, in the facts and circumstances of the case.

4. Heard the learned counsel for the revision petitioner, and the learned Special Public Prosecutor for CBI.

5. The final report and the accompanying records relied on by the investigating agency would convincingly reveal that the petitioner had cheated the BSNL by fraudulently and dishonestly inducing it to believe that only local calls of tariff amounting to Rs.30,264/- are incurred by the use of the telephone connections availed by him, while in fact, by resorting to fraud and foul play, ISD calls which would have incurred a charge of Rs.2,61,967/-, were diverted through the above phone connections, making use of a software downloaded from a foreign company. The aforesaid act of the petitioner would clearly bring home the offence under Section 4 20 I.P.C. So also, the offence under Section 20 r/w of the Indian Telegraph Act , is prima facie brought out from the above facts and circumstances of the case. There is absolutely no basis for the contention of the petitioner that the allegations in the final report will not constitute any offence. The learned Chief Judicial Magistrate has rightly disallowed the prayer of the petitioner for discharge. Needless to say, the impugned order of the learned Magistrate is not liable to be interfered with, in exercise of the revisional powers of this Court.

In the result, the revision petition is hereby dismissed.

(sd/-)