Bhubaneswar: An OPID Court In Odisha’s Balasore today convicted two persons, Sayed Shahbaaz Naqvi and Subas Ghisingh Giri, in a Cheque Cloning Fraud case and sentenced them to undergo Rigorous Imprisonment (RI) for seven years
The court also imposed a fine of Rs.2.5 Lakhs on each convict and ruled that on default of the fine, accused persons would undergo further imprisonment of 27 months each.
According to EOW, this is the first conviction in Odisha in a Cheque Cloning Fraud case and also is the fastest case of conviction of EOW Odisha which took 1 year 9 months from the date of registration of the case.
The EOW said that a case was registered on the allegation of Abhisek Panda, the Executive Officer of Barbil Municipality on Keonjhar that fraudulent and unauthorised transfer of Rs.2,45,60,800 from their official account maintained with Bank of Baroda, Barbil, were done by using clone cheques and forged signature of the informant.
Investigation of the case revealed that the official account of Barbil Municipality was maintained with Bank of Baroda, Barbil, and the authorized signatory of the account is the informant in his capacity as Executive Officer of Barbil Municipality, and each debit transaction from the account is made under his signature only. However, on 16.03.2022 and 21.03.2022, the accused persons, Subas Ghisingh Giri and Sayed Shahbaaz Naqvi in criminal conspiracy with others managed to transfer/withdraw Rs.2,45,60,800 from the above account by using the clone cheques prepared by forging the bank cheques and the signature of the Executive Officer.
In the course of the investigation, it was found that out of the fraud amount of Rs.2,45,60,800, an amount of Rs.70,16,520 was found to have been diverted to the account of Sayed Shahbaaz Naqvi maintained with Bank of India, whereas Rs.25 lakhs was found to have finally landed in the account of Subas Ghisingh Giri maintained with ICICI Bank.
Expert assistance from the Hand Writing Bureau, CC TV footage analysis and assistance from BSNL authorities proved vital apart from other traditional approaches during the investigation of the case.
Subhash Ghising Giri was arrested from Barrackpore, West Bengal on 24th March 2022. Later another accused Sayed Shahbaaz Naqvi was arrested from Raipur Chattisgarh) on 25th March 2022.
Based on evidence CS No.23 dt.19.07.2022 U/s 420/467/468/471/120-B IPC was submitted against Subas Ghisingh Giri and Sayed Shahbaaz Naqvi in the Hon’ble Designated Court under OPID Act, Balasore.
Today, the Court under OPID, Balasore, delivered the judgement in the Cheque Cloning Fraud case holding, Sayed Shahbaaz Naqvi and Subas Ghisingh Giri guilty U/s 420/467/468/471/120-B IPC.
Pranab Kumar Panda, Spl. PP, OPID Court, Balasore was conducting the prosecution while DSP Simanchal Gantayat was the investigating officer of the case.
