Term 'Unemployment' Sounds Like A Death Knell For Youth, Duping Them On Pretext Of Securing Job Is 'Cheating Of Highest Order': Orissa HC

The Bench of Justice S. K. Sahoo has ruled that making a false promise to the job aspirant by assuring him/her job on payment of huge amount itself establishes one of the essential ingredients of cheating as envisaged under section 415 of the Indian Penal Code.

Case in brief

The applicant before the Court has been booked for offences punishable under sections 419, 420, 467, 468, 471 read with section 120-B of the Indian Penal Code and 66-C, 66-D of the Information Technology Act, 2000.

The applicant has been accused of duping the common public of their money with criminal intent to defraud them and collect illicit money from them on the pretext of offering them jobs in TATA Company.

It has been alleged that the petitioner was illegally impersonating and projecting himself as MD, Tata Motors, Pune Passenger Division and CEO designate.

Court's observations

The Court, at the outset, observed that nature and the seriousness of an economic offence and its impact on society are an important considerations in such a case and those aspects must squarely be dealt with by the Court while passing an order on bail applications.

Importantly, the Court said:

"Thus, economic offences are considered grave offences as it affects the economy of the country as a whole and such offences having deep-rooted conspiracy and involving huge loss of public fund are to be viewed seriously. The economic offence is committed with cool calculation and deliberate design solely with an eye on personal profit regardless of the consequence to the community. An economic offence is a well-manipulated offence. It is a white collared crime which disturbs economic equilibrium in the society and the weaker section is victimised."

Further, the Court refrained from giving any opinion on the disputed question as to whether the petitioner was working in Tata Motors Division Office at Pimri, Pune.

The Court noted that in a pre-planned and calculated manner, the petitioner and the co-accused persons incurred wrongful gain by inflicting wrongful loss to the common people in the name of providing them jobs in TATA.

The Court also observed that the job aspirants were mesmerised as the petitioner alleged to have created forged documents and electronic records of Tata Motors, received resumes of job aspirants, conducted fake online interviews, issued forged selection letters and organised fake online training programme for the selected candidates.

Significantly, the Court remarked:

"When an educated youth carrying certificates of Boards and Universities is drenched in the rain of sorrow for the non-availability of any suitable job for him and unable to show his tears to anyone even though he is crying inwardly, feeling pain in his hurting heart and tries to hide signs of sadness, instead of providing him an umbrella for weathering storms of life and playing a supportive role to let him overcome depression, if someone on the pretext of providing job exploits the youth and dupes him of his money arranged with much difficulty and makes him falling prey to temptations of lucrative jobs, it is cheating of highest order."

Also, noting that cases of fraudsters cheating job aspirants are also on a sharp rise, the Court opined that these white-collar crimes are required to be dealt with iron hands and severe punishment needs to be awarded to the culprits on proof of charges.

With these observations, the bail plea was rejected.

Case title - Akash Kumar Pathak v. State of Odisha