The Kerala High Court has dismissed petitions seeking to quash the cases registered in connection with the operation of parallel telephone exchanges in Kozhikode.
The petitions were filed by Abdul Gafoor and other accused challenging the registration of crimes under Sections 4 read with 20 of the Indian Telegraph Act, Sections 3, 6(1), 6(1A) of the Indian Wireless Telegraphy Act and Section 420 of the Indian Penal Code and Section 66 F of the Information Technology Act.
The allegation was that the accused persons were found using multiple broadband connections and intentionally converted international phone calls and other calls by terminating and bypassing them as local calls with the help of illegal call routing gateway devices by inserting pre-activated SIM cards without the knowledge or consent of the SIM card owners. The accused had thereby caused huge monetary loss to the government and the service providers by installing parallel telephone exchanges at different locations in Kozhikode.
They also posed a security threat to the nation as the calls switched through such set-ups cannot be traced and are beyond the scope of lawful interception.
Justice K. Haripal observed that the petitions were lacking in merits and were dismissed.
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