Cyber fraud case | Mere crediting of amount in bank does not constitute an offence: Court

On February 26, 2022, the victim, a police officer, had received an SMS asking for her PAN card details to update her HDFC bank account. She was sent a link, which she clicked on. The link took her to a fake website. Nearly Rs 1 lakh were transferred from her account. She also received a call and was asked for an OTP. After she gave the OTP, another Rs 2.99 lakh was transferred from her account. She approached the police, who traced the phone number from which the call was received to a man named Rauf Ansari, a resident of Jamtara in Jharkhand. The investigators said that money from the first transaction of Rs 99,986 was sent to a bank account belonging to one Manoj Kisku and booked him under charges including cheating and forgery.

The accused had claimed that he had no knowledge about the amount credited to his bank account. He said that there was no evidence that he had sent the SMS or had any links to the main accused, who was never arrested.

The court said that the victim suffered a wrongful loss after she had provided her OTP to an unknown person, and the amount was received by the accused. However it concluded that this constitutes civil liability and not a criminal offence, as there is no evidence of the accused’s involvement in the transfer of the amount.