Ritick Shaw And Another v. State Of West Bengal
In The High Court at Calcutta Criminal Revisional Jurisdiction Appellate Side Coram:
The Hon'ble Justice Jay Sengupta CRR 2538 of 2025 Ritick Shaw & Anr.
Vs.
State of West Bengal For the petitioners : Mr. Fazlur Rahman Mr. Babul Hussain Mr. Mihinur Hossain For the State : Mr. Suman De Ms. Baishakhi Chatterjee Heard on : 24.07.2025 Judgment on : 24.07.2025 Jay Sengupta, J.:- This is an application for quashing of a proceeding in ADPC Cyber Crime Police Station Case no. 35/25 dated 26.04.2025 under Sections 316(2)/318(4)/319(2)/336(3)/338/340(2)/61(2) of the BNS and Sections 20 and 21 of the Indian Telegraph Act. Learned counsel appearing on behalf of the petitioners submits as follows. The petitioners are absolutely innocent and have been falsely implicated in this case. One of the petitioners was issued notices during
investigation and they are ready to cooperate with the investigation of the case. No prima facie case is made out as would be evident from a plain reading of the First Information Report and any further continuation of impugned proceeding shall be an abuse of the process of law. Learned counsel appearing for the State vehemently opposes the prayer for quashing.
From a plain reading of the First Information Report, it appears that allegations have been levelled against the accused for running an illegal callcentre in order to cheat people from different States of India. The accused used to collect customer's database from different online shopping companies. When the customers got trapped they charged for GST and other deposit amounts. They used several online sites for such purpose. No valid document could be produced for running such call-centre. From the place of occurrence, a huge number of mobile phones, ATM cards, Laptops, SIM cards and diaries of online shopping sites were collected. The petitioner no. 1 was termed as the mastermind behind this and his associates were operating by either staying abroad and in other parts of the country.
It appears from the documents annexed that relevant seizures were also made and the police was looking for the suspects. Therefore, it appears from a plain reading of the First Information Report that a prima facie case is made out against the petitioners and the investigation is at a nascent stage.
The claims of the petitioners that they are innocent and have been falsely implicated are essentially disputed questions of fact, which cannot be decided in an application for quashing.
Therefore, I do not find any merit in this application for quashing. Accordingly, the same is dismissed, however, without any order as to costs.
Urgent photostat certified copy of this order, if applied for, be given to the parties upon compliance with requisite formalities. (Jay Sengupta, J.)