New Delhi, Nov 6 (PTI) A court here has granted bail to two men accused of siphoning off money by planting a bug in an online payment system, saying instead of penal provisions, sections of the Information Technology (IT) Act should have been applied in the case.
The court also observed that the offence of hacking under section 66 (computer-related offences) of the Act is bailable and the penal provisions of cheating and conspiracy were wrongly invoked against the accused.
Judicial Magistrate Raghav Sharma was hearing the bail plea of the two accused, against whom an FIR was registered under sections 420 (cheating), 120B (criminal conspiracy) and 34 (common intention) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC).
The court took note of the submissions made by the accused’s lawyers, Shashank Dewan and Amrit Singh, according to which, only the “special law” of the IT Act that has an overriding effect over general laws could be invoked in the case as the complaint pertains to cheating by the use of applications, computers and computer networks.
The offence under section 66 of the IT Act is bailable and so the detention of the accused persons was illegal, the lawyers argued.
In its order dated October 29, the court said, “As the only offence attracted against the accused persons is section 66 of the IT Act and as the same is bailable in nature, the accused persons could not have been kept in custody by the investigating officer (IO). Sections of the IPC have been wrongly impleaded against the accused persons.” It also said the IT Act is a special enactment and it would prevail over the general law of the IPC.
“A perusal of the contents of the FIR and the reply of the IO would show that the accused persons used web applications and bugs and thereby, found a loophole in the programming of the payment gateway of the complainant and thereby, managed to cheat the complainant and siphoned off money from its account,” the court said, adding that these offences are “squarely covered” under the IT Act. PTI MNR RC
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