By Our Correspondent
BHUBANESWAR: OPID Court, Balasore, delivered the judgment on 25.01.2024 in the above case holding the accused persons namely Bijay Bharadwaj and Himanshu Bhandari of Noida, UP guilty U/s 419/420/465/467/468/471/ 170/120-B IPC, Sec.66 (C) & 66 (D) of IT Act and sentenced them to undergo Rigorous Imprisonment for ten years and fine of Rs. 3 Lakhs each. On default of fine accused persons will undergo further imprisonment of two years each.
This case was registered on the allegation of Pramod Kumar Rout, a businessman of Joda, Keonjhar against scammers for cheating him of Rs.2.35 Crores on the pretext of paying him Rs 3 Crores from the Govt. of India, under ‘Pradhan Mantri Rahat Kosh Yojana’ against his Insurance Policy with Max New York Life, using the forged and manipulated documents.
Informant Pramod Kumar Rout had one policy in Max New York Life Insurance Company. In 2019, he received a call from the fraudster impersonating as A. K Walia, the Fund Releasing Head, Ministry of Finance, Govt. of India, – Informing him that his insurance policy has been selected for reward under “Pradhan Mantri Rahat Kosh Yojona” of Govt. of India and an amount of Rs.3 Crores will be released in his account.
– Subsequently, he received one letter on WhatsApp, which was issued purportedly by one HOD (Insurance Regulatory & Development Authority of India (IRDA) that the informant is required to pay some dues for receiving fund of Rs 1,56,36,500/- within next 4 hours. Along with the above letter, the informant also received some other communications/photographs in his WhatsApp.
– The informant/victim received a series of calls from different persons using different mobile numbers, who identified themselves as employees in the office of Mr. A.K. Walia and induced/ persuaded the informant to transfer money through RTGS for the release of Rs 3 Crore.
– Being induced, the informant transferred around Rs 2.35 Crores in installments believing that after these procedure he will get him the Reward Money but no amount was received by him under ‘Pradhan Mantri Rahat Kosh Yojana’ and finally the informant realized that he has been cheated by the fraudsters.
– The fraudsters had sent many fake letters on WhatsApp to the informant issued by Ministry of Finance, RBI, Income Tax Department and images of two bank Demand Drafts in favour of the informant amounting to Rs.1,27,73,000/- and Rs.70,81,800/-. All these letters/ documents were found to be fake and forged.
– During investigation it was found that out of the fraud amount of Rs.2.35 Crore, amount of Rs.63,09,896/- and Rs 79 Lakhs and had been transferred to the accounts of accused Himansu Bhandari and Bijay Bharadwaj respectively, and they misappropriated the same.
– Accused Himansu Bhandari and Bijay Bharadwaj were arrested on 15.03.2022 and 09.11.2022 respectively from Uttar Pradesh. – Charge Sheets were submitted on 10.07.2022 and 04.03.202 against
Himansu Bhandari and Bijay Bharadwaj respectively. – Shri Pranab Kumar Panda, Spl. PP, OPID Court, Balasore was conducting the prosecution.
– Addl. SP Smt. Iti Das is the Investigating Officer of the case. This is worth to mention that EOW Odisha is probably only agency in India which have 100% conviction rate. All the cases of EOW, so far, have resulted in conviction. In last one year alone, 5 cases of EOW Odisha have resulted in conviction.
