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The year 2013 was bittersweet for educationist Sanjay Govind Dhande. That year, the former director of IIT Kanpur was honoured with Padma Shri, the fourth-highest civilian award in the country. However, the year also saw him losing ₹19 lakh from his firm’s bank account in a cyber fraud that exposed the pitfalls of the digital banking infrastructure at the time.
A resident of Pune, Dhande was then a member of the National Security Advisory Board, and he and his wife were directors of a Pune-based private firm with its current account at the ICICI Bank. The account had an internet banking facility and it was linked to a Vodafone mobile number issued in the name of Dhande’s wife, Medha.
To commit the fraud, the criminals had procured a SIM card in the name of Medha by submitting a forged passport with a photograph of former Union minister Dayanidhi Maran of the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK).
The fraudsters then carried out multiple fraudulent online transactions from the bank account of Dhande’s firm using an Internet Protocol (IP) address from Turkey.
Dhande not only filed the complaint with the Pune city police but also initiated a legal fight against the telecom company and the bank for the alleged lapses that enabled the online fraud. He won the case in 2020.
Lapses at many levels
On September 6, 2013, the mobile phone stopped functioning and they complained to the local Vodafone shop where a problem with the SIM card was identified. On September 10, Dhande applied for a new SIM card and got it by submitting documents like PAN Card.
Between September 6 and September 10, 2013, when the mobile phone was not functioning, ₹19 lakh was transferred fraudulently from the firm’s bank account.
Based on a complaint filed by Dhande, an FIR was lodged at the Chaturshringi police station in Pune on September 14. It was transferred to the Cyber Crime Cell for investigation.
It was learnt that money from the bank account of Dhande’s firm was transferred to various bank accounts, mainly in ICICI Bank. After knowing about the matter, ICICI Bank recovered about ₹3.26 lakh from these “beneficiary” accounts and credited it back to the firm’s account.
Meanwhile, a police probe revealed a new SIM card for Medha’s phone number was issued to a fraudster who visited a Vodafone franchise in Nagpur on September 6. The police found a major lapse as a SIM card in the woman’s name was issued to a man.
The police also found that along with the SIM replacement form, the fraudster had submitted a copy of a forged passport bearing Medha Dhande’s name, but the photograph on it was of Maran, who had served as Union minister of communications and information technology (2004-2007) and minister of textiles (2009-2011) in successive United Progressive Alliance (UPA) governments.
Soon after the new sim card in possession of the fraudster started functioning, Dhande’s cell phone stopped working. Then, ₹19,01,073 was transferred from the bank account of Dhande’s firm through 22 illegal transactions within a short period. As the phone was not working, no SMS alerts from the bank about the transactions reached Dhande.
The probe revealed the transactions were done from an IP address in Turkey. Money was transferred to different bank accounts in Mumbai, West Bengal, Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan. The police searched for these “beneficiary account” holders and arrested a few. The fraudsters had paid ₹3,000 each to these mule account holders.
The police found alleged lacunas by the ICICI Bank that it should have verified the transactions from IP addresses belonging to foreign countries. Also, considering the history and pattern of Dhande’s transactions in the past, the bank could have identified the suspicious activity. The police also noted that some of Dhande’s money was transferred to a bank account with a fake name.
A senior police officer part of the investigation said the fraudster who procured a SIM card from Nagpur was identified, and some mule account holders were arrested but it was a major cyber crime with foreign connections that could not be traced further.
Legal battle for compensation
Dhande filed a complaint with the office of Adjudicating Officer, Information Technology (IT) Department of the Maharashtra government, demanding compensation from ICICI Bank and Vodafone.
In January 2014, then IT secretary Rajesh Agarwal, who was the judge for a special court of the IT Department, passed an order that Vodafone and ICICI Bank should pay Dhane ₹12 lakh and ₹6 lakh, respectively, as compensation.
Both Vodafone and ICICI Bank moved the Cyber Appellate Tribunal, Delhi, against this order. But, for a long period, the chairman of Cyber Appellate Tribunal was not appointed by the government. So, no appeals were listened to, and no orders were passed.
But things improved after the government merged the Cyber Appellate Tribunal with the Telecom Dispute Settlement and Appellate Tribunal (TDSAT), and it took up Dhande’s case.
In February 2020, the TDSAT passed an order in Dhande’s favour and when contacted, Dhande confirmed to The Indian Express that he had received the compensation amount.
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