Chennai: While upholding an order of the Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate (ACMM), Egmore, in convicting an Ahmedabad-based telecom company and its two directors in an international calls scam, the VII Additional Sessions Court, Chennai, has directed the ACMM to secure the convicts immediately.
The ACMM on September 22, 2010 sentenced them to undergo imprisonment for six months for converting international calls into local calls and causing a loss of of Rs 68.67 lakh to public sector telecom firms - BSNL and VSNL.
According to prosecution, during 2000-2001, Richard Morris, 49 and Maulik Bavishi, 30, directors of R.M.B. Software’s Pvt. Ltd., Ahmedabad, director of Sanskrut Software Systems Private Limited and a few employees conspired to switch of incoming international calls and convert them into voice signal, using software. They transmitted the international calls to various subscribers as local calls. As a result, VSNL and BSNL incurred a loss of Rs 68.67 lakh and the accused had benefited from illegal network link.
On a complaint from Vigilance Department, Chennai Telephones, the CBI, Chennai, filed a charge sheet against six persons, including R.M.B. Software’s Pvt. Ltd, Richard Morris, and Maulik Bavishi.
The ACMM convicted the R.M.B. Software directors and sentenced them to undergo imprisonment for six months. The court also imposed a fine of Rs.1000 each on them..
Aggrieved , the two filed appeals. They submitted the trial court failed to appreciate that the license was obtained by Wipronet Limited. However, the licensee was not included in the case. Hence, third parties cannot be charged for violation. The Wipronet violated the license conditions, they said.
Challenging the appeal, CBI submitted the accused unauthorisedly used public telephone network without proper licence. Dismissing the appeal, VII Additional Sessions Judge, K. Dhanasekaran, confirmed the verdict and directed the trial court to secure the convicts as expeditiously as possible.
