Bombay High Court: The present petition sought quashing of FIR registered on 08-02-2018 against petitioner, an Austrian National, based on the complaint lodged by Respondent 2-the Deputy General Manager, on behalf of Go Airlines India Ltd., for which petitioner was working initially as Chief Executive Officer and thereafter was promoted as Managing Director but had resigned on 31-08-2017. The Division Bench of Bharati Dangre and Manjusha Deshpande, JJ., opined that it did not find any material to show that petitioner was dishonestly or fraudulently sending Company’s confidential information to his personal email ID and to third party email ID. Thus, the Court quashed and set aside the FIR, as it failed to make out an offence against petitioner under Sections 43(b) and 66 of the Information Technology Act, 2000 (‘the IT Act, 2000’).
Background
Petitioner, as per the Employment Agreement, was under an obligation to work with the company for period of six months after his resignation, but he made a request to the Company’s Chairman to be relieved from his duties by 16-09-2017 and thus, he was relieved on 15-12-2017. As per the Company’s Internal Policy and Regulations, it was imperative for petitioner to return the devices used by him for conducting the Company’s business in the capacity as Managing Director, including the laptop, mobile phone, and all other confidential information.
On 18-12-2017, petitioner received a letter from Go Air’s Vice President (Legal), accusing him of sending confidential information from his official ID to his personal ID, i.e., wolfgang.prockschauer@gmail.com and to the email ID of the third party, that is, martina.flitsch@jarolim.at. Petitioner was also accused of formatting the data on his iPad, and he informed his secretary that he would be returning the mobile phone provided to him by the Company through the driver on 18-12-2017, and he complied with it.
In the present case, FIR was registered alleging that petitioner, in his as CEO, was taking decisions on his own without consulting the Board of Directors and the information with him relating to the company was shared by him with third parties. The complaint against petitioner invoked Section 4081 of the Penal Code, 1860 (‘IPC’) along with Sections 43(b) and 66 of the IT Act, 2000. Later, the Investigating Officer (‘IO’) inferred from the investigation, that the stored data was not a property and therefore, respondents decided to proceed with the investigation under Sections 43(b) and Section 66 of the IT Act, 2000, and not to move ahead under Section 408 of IPC.
Analysis, Law, and Decision
The Court noted that petitioner’s emails were related to preparation for briefings and presentations; and it had information about the Engines and meetings with the Airbus. Further, there were emails which were forwarded to petitioner’s attorney in Austria after resignation, seeking legal advice on the issue, relating to his exit from the company and had no concern with the Company’s information.
The Court on ascertaining from the IO as to whether there were any documents, which were downloaded and subsequently shared by petitioner in his capacity as a CEO, and if whether there was any material collated during the investigation to justify that it had been fraudulently and dishonestly downloaded, with an intention to gain any advantage from the company, was not provided with any information as the same was not collected.
The Court noted that the explanation appended to Section 66 of IPC clearly set out that the words ‘dishonestly’ and ‘fraudulently’ shall have the meaning assigned to it under Sections 24 and 25 of IPC. The Court opined that since the word ‘fraudulent’ was assigned a specific meaning, which contemplated an intention of causing wrongful gain to one person or wrongful loss to another person and when an act was alleged to be done fraudulently, it was only when a person was set to do a thing with an intent to defraud but not otherwise, thus, it did not find any material to that effect, being received by IO during the investigation.
The Court stated that it failed to understand as to how the offence under Section 66 of the IT Act, 2000, was made out and since the company from which petitioner sought exit had already secure its interest, by filing a suit, which was pending for adjudication and therein petitioner’s statement was recorded that he shall not use and/or copy and/or publish and/or disclose to any person or persons any of the confidential information, trade secret and/or knowhow pertaining to the Company and this statement being accepted as an undertaking to the Court, had sufficiently secured the interest of the Company.
The Court stated that since the accusation in the complaint did not lead to making out an offence under Section 43(b) read with Section 66 of the IT Act, 2000, petitioner’s case would fall within categories (a) and (e) as stated in State of Haryana v. Bhajan Lal, 1992 Supp (1) SCC 335, wherein category (a) stated that “where the allegations made in the First Information Report or the complaint, even if they are taken at their face value and accepted in their entirety do not prima facie constitute any offence or make out a case against the accused”, and category (e) stated that “where allegations made in the FIR or complaint are so absurd and inherently improbable on the basis of which no prudent person can ever reach a just conclusion that there is sufficient ground for proceeding against the accused’.
The Court held that continuation of proceedings against petitioner would be nothing short of mere procedural rigmarole and therefore, the Court quashed and set aside the FIR, as it failed to make out an offence against petitioner under Sections 43(b) and 66 of the IT Act, 2000.
[Wolfgang Prock-Schauer v. State of Maharashtra, 2024 SCC OnLine Bom 3482, decided on 23-10-2024]
Advocates who appeared in this case :
For the Petitioner: Advocate Niranjan Mundargi, a/w Keral Mehta, Savani Gupte, Lalit Munshi, Siddhi Somani i/b Samvad Partners for the Petitioner.
For the Respondents: Advocate Tavleen Saini i/b Crawford Bayley & Co for Respondent 2; J.P. Yagnik, APP for the State.
Buy Penal Code, 1860 HERE
1. Corresponding Section 316(4) of the Nyaya Sanhita, 2023