Jasjit’s Cyberoughts

Last week, one of my very close friends called me for an advise on something strange and disturbing. He received a call from a lawyer representing his mobile telephone service provider informing him that he was required to appear before a court in Delhi for a hearing, as he had not paid his telephone bill. He was also informed that he was not traceable for last  one and half years and hence court summons could not be served.

He was naturally very disturbed to hear this. The firm owned by him has 60+ mobile phone connections for its employees from the same service provider. All mobile phone numbers, including the one used by him and his father bear the firm’s name and address. He pays in excess of Rs 75,000/- for mobile phone services for all connections owned by his firm every month. He was naturally disturbed to hear; that his firm had failed to pay a mobile phone bill of less than Rs 3000/- and he has to attend a court hearing for the same.

After checking with his employees, he was sure that no one in his firm had used that mobile no. Also, his employees could not have got the connection in the firm’s name as they would not have access to the required papers.

It seems that someone in the mobile phone service provider’s office used his and his firm’s identity papers to get an additional mobile phone connection along with the connection ordered by his firm. This person probably got the address changed subsequently. So my friend did not receive any bills and also did not get any notice for a court case filed against him for recovering the dues.

As he was not sure what is the re-dressal mechanism available to him in this case, he chose to pay the dues and reach a settlement with his service provider. As the amount involved was very small he decided not to pursue the matter further.

After his call, I could not help but wonder, what could be the possible re-dressal mechanism. Is it possible to file a fraud case against the mobile phone service provider ? if yes, then on what basis ?

What kind evidence can be produced in such cases ? Will the call history help ? Will the fact that my friend has a no. of other mobile connections from the same firm and has not defaulted in payments even once go in his favour ? Can the mobile phone service provider be charged with negligence in this case ?

Phew .. too many questions and too little information available.

Couple of years back I read an article by Felix Mohan, Director - SecureSynergy about the legislation that is in works for such cases. As per him:

“Legal provisions to counter identity theft. The IT Act 2000 in its present form does not have any specific provision to deal with identity theft. However, the Expert Committee on Amendments to the IT Act 2000 (whose report is presently under consideration by the government for adoption) has recommended amending the Indian Penal Code (IPC) by inserting in it two new sections: section 417A which prescribes punishment of up to 3 years imprisonment and fine for ‘cheating by using any unique identification feature of any other person’; and section 419A that prescribes punishment of up to 5 years imprisonment and fine for ‘cheating by impersonation’ using a network or computer resource.

Sections 417A and 419A comprehensively cover identity theft and their incorporation into the IPC would place India amongst the handful of countries to have specific provisions to counter the scourge of identity theft.”

We are still waiting for the updated IT Act and I have absolutely no idea what became of section 417A and 419A….

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