A special court for the Central Crime Branch (CCB) cases at Egmore has convicted a man from West Bengal for attempting to cheat a senior advocate and former advocate general P.S. Raman. The convicted person was sentenced to five-month imprisonment.
According to police, on September 4, the complainant, Raman alleged that he received a WhatsApp message from an unknown person claiming that he was the son of a Supreme Court Judge, New Delhi and that he himself was an advocate. As he was in Chennai for some official work, he said he was in need of some cash for his personal expenses. Believing this to be genuine, the complainant contacted the unknown caller and responded. The caller asked for ₹20,000 for his personal expenses and promised to return the sum once he reached New Delhi.
Later, the complainant realised that he had been targeted by a fraudster. He lodged a complaint with the City Police Commissioner and a case was registered in the Cyber Crime Cell, CCB under sections 66 D (Punishment for cheating by personation by using computer resource) read with 84C (Punishment for attempt to commit offences) of the Information Technology Act.
During the course of the investigation, the unknown caller was identified as Aparajith Basak, 54 a native of West Bengal. A Special team arrested the accused in September and remanded him. After the collection of documents and examination of witnesses, a chargesheet was filed within 45 days and a trial conducted in the CCB Special Court, Egmore. The court found Aparajith Basak guilty for offences under provisions of the Information Technology Act and ordered he undergo five-month simple imprisonment.
