HC drops case against those running ‘fake’ call centre

The High Court of Karnataka has quashed the proceedings against four persons, accused of running a fake call centre at Whitefield, in the city. Justice K Natarajan noted that there are no victims or complaints by the general public alleging cheating.

The petitions were filed by Rishi Vyas, Syed Ibrath, Rishabh and Jithiya Kishan Heerabai challenging the proceedings initiated by Mahadevapura and Whitefield police.

The FIRs were registered on the credible information received by the police that the accused persons were running fake call centre companies – Ethical Infotech Private Limited at EPIP Zone in Whitefield and Ethical Infocom Private Limited at Silver Soft Techpark in Mahadevapura. It was further stated that the employees engaged by the companies would call American citizens and cheat them in the name of gifts from Amazon. The police filed the charge sheet in one case.

The court noted that only one of the accused, Jithiya Kishan, is the director of the company. The others, Rishi Vyas is an employee, Syed Ibrath is a travel agent while Rishabh is totally a stranger, the court observed.

“Absolutely there are no victims or any complaint made by any of the public who have been actually cheated by these petitioners. That apart, out of the two volumes of charge sheet, the police not produced any single evidence against these petitioners to show these accused persons are involved in running the fake call centre and collected money from any of the public either citizens of India or citizens of America.

Simply they have seized all the materials, cash, cars, mobile phones, laptop, but absolutely there is no incriminating material to connect the accused with the crime, in order to show the petitioners intentionally involved in the commission of cheating or fabricating the documents or snatched the cash belonging to any of the customers,” the court said.

The court also said that the police have the liberty to investigate further in the matter and can also file the additional charge sheet against the actual or real culprit.