Scam or Crime - Part Deux

In my earlier blog, I discussed the modalities of a sophisticated ponzi scheme crafted to cheat gullible citizens of Bengaluru. Also discussed in the blog were the provisions or remedies available in the law that the state has provided to the aggrieved citizen.

In this blog, let’s see the efficacy of those remedies.

As mentioned earlier, in case of cheating there is the section 420 of IPC under which the state can initiate the investigation, in response to an FIR, against the accused and prosecute, if necessary. (After all we are paying taxes to the state, it can do something to safeguard us, isn’t it?)

Although for some inexplicable reason, the state’s law enforcement agency showed some reluctance to register the FIR. Thankfully, and to the good use of taxpayer’s money that, we have kiosks that were launched in the city of Bengaluru that helped file an FIR (005/2015 u/s 420) against one Mr AA (name withheld), an alleged perpetrator of such a scam.

(Normally I wouldn’t have revealed any personally identifiable information on the blog with the fear of case of defamation against me, but hey, the draconian section 66A of the IT act is a talk of the past. That saves me from 'computer-blog-based-defamation' although acts of IPC could still be invoked. In that case, well, the information revealed here is already available in public domain, as we will see. So I am not really cooking up anything or passing judgements. Just making some inferences by highlighting the data from the functioning of the system, and as the great Morpheus told Neo, "It is the system that is our enemy" : Matrix-1)

The FIR should kick off the criminal justice system with the state doing the needed and proper investigation and if found grounds for criminality, charge sheet followed by prosecution of the accused in the court, which will eventually determine the guilt based on the evidence presented.

Or so one would think.

Besides the e-kiosks for FIR, another great use of taxpayer’s money has been the e-governance, under which the government data is becoming transparent and accessible to citizens at their fingertips. Cool, isn’t it.

So at the website, http://ecourts.gov.in/services, and selecting the “state” as “Karnataka”, “district” as “Bengaluru” and querying the status of the FIR (005 in the year 2015) in the CMM court of Bangalore, following data shows up:

Case Type/Reg No.	Decision Date	FIR/PS		IPC Section	Case Status	Nature of Disposal
Cr.1332/2015	19th Jan 2015	5/2015 – Koramangala	420		Disposed	Contested-closed

Interpretation of this data seems to suggest that the case has been closed and disposed of, without any verdict against the accused.

Well, so perhaps the investigation did not reveal a wrong doing and the case did not have any merit for the state to be able to prosecute the accused.

One of the main things to prosecute someone under IPC 420 is the establishment of ‘mens rea’ on the part of the accused. In English, it implies the establishment of the intent of the accused or the fact that the accused did indeed intend to commit the crime.  This safeguard is understandable and necessary. After all you don’t want law to be misused.

Anyways, to see if the accused in this case (name withheld, but let's call him Mr AA), was indeed of criminal intent or not, I looked at some more past data from the ‘ecourts’ website to get a list of cases against him and see if it offered any result or pattern. Following data shows up:

Case Type/Reg No.	Petitioner – Respondent	Decision Date	FIR/PS	IPC Section	Case Status/Details	Nature of Disposal
P.C.R. 17603/2006	STATE BANK OF MYSORE Vs AA	14th March 2013	NA	NA	Disposed (Cognizance  on 17-01-2007)	Bulk disposed
P.C.R. 6812/2007	Veena Rathod Vs AA	01st July 2012	NA	NA	Disposed	Converted
C.C. 3952/2007	S B M BASAVA GUDI Vs AA	16th August 2012	NA	NA	Disposed (NBW issued on 31-05-2008)*	Bulk disposed
Cr 411/2015	GOURISHANKAR SINGH Vs. AA AND ANOTHER	6th January 2015	9/2015 – Koramangala	420	Disposed	Contested-Closed
Cr.1332/2015	SMITA AGRAWAL Vs AA	19th Jan 2015	5/2015 – Koramangala	420	Disposed	Contested-closed

*I am not an expert on court language but I think NBW implies “Non Bailable Warrant”

This is just a list of cases against the person named “AA ”. Since in many cases and complaints, only the first name might have been used, the list can potentially be much larger.

Obviously, I don’t have any proof to establish that all these AA are the same person. In theory, they could all be different people, which would imply that the citizens of Bengaluru have something gravely against people named “AA” and the law is doing well to save them.

However, assuming they are all the same person, one of the 2 seems possible:

      Either Mr AA is a severely misunderstood person that almost every year he has someone falsely complaining against him

         Or He is in fact a person of criminal mindset with a mens rea to cheat others, in which case the law  (and law enforcement) somehow seems overly generous towards him that all cases against him get disposed/closed and he is still out at large.

They say beauty lies in the eyes of the beholder. Similarly interpretation of the data lies in eyes of the interpreter. With that, I leave you to form your interpretation.

One could file an RTI to get the copy of these weak charge sheets (although there is some unclarity in the legal fraternity about 'chargesheet' being a public document and hence accessible via RTI) and then present an application in front of the concerned magistrate and request to invoke the powers under section 156(3) of the CrPC, that can allow the magistrate to order a proper investigation of the FIR. But if the law enforcement (which is also the investigative arm) is anyway generous towards a particular perpetrator, how likely is that the magisterial order will lead to a different result?

Hmm, the plot gets thicker. Let's see if there is a "Part 3".