Karnataka High Court refuses to quash FIR against duo accused of conning Amazon

The Karnataka High Court has refused to quash the First Information Report (FIR) registered against two persons accused of having conned e-commerce company Amazon of over ₹69 lakh.

On November 22, Justice M Nagaprasanna dismissed the quashing petition filed by the accused, stating that the allegations at hand were an instance of a “modern age crime.”

A detailed order of the Court is awaited.

The petition filed by one Sourish Bose and his co-accused Deepanvita Ghosh seeking quashing of the first information report (FIR) registered against them and setting aside of a magistrate court’s order taking cognisance of the case.

They were booked in 2017 after an Amazon employee figured out their modus operandi and realised they had been conning the company for years.

As per the complaint, Bose would place orders with Amazon for high-end products, make payments through his bank account, and get them delivered at Ghosh’s address.

Within 24 hours, he would initiate a return for the products, secure a refund, and then replace the genuine products with cheap copies, place them in their original boxes and packaging, and return them to Amazon.

The return addresses, the State told the Court on Friday, would sometimes be those registered as Ghosh’s residence. At other times, they would be different addresses from across Bengaluru.

The police charged them for offences punishable under Section 420 (cheating) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) and Section 66D of the Information Technology Act (IT Act).

This led to the plea before the Court to quash the case.