Consultant arrested for making fake email id of Shapoorji Pallonji group firm

A consultant with access to confidential documents was arrested for allegedly creating a fake email account of Shapoorji Pallonji's sister concern and sending confidential data to an infrastructure finance firm. The consultant worked for the sister concern, which is promoted by Shapoorji Pallonji & Company Private Limited. The police have charged the consultant under the Indian Penal Code for forgery and breach of confidentiality and privacy under section 72 of the Information Technology Act.

MUMBAI: A 43-year-old consultant was arrested on Thursday for allegedly making a fake email id of real estate giant Shapoorji Pallonji’s sister concern and sending emails to an infrastructure finance company with confidential documents attached to it.

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The Colaba police said the man had worked as a consultant with the sister concern and had access to the confidential documents which he had sent to the finance company with wrong intentions.

The police said a case was registered with them in January by the water business head of Kanpur River Management Private Limited (KRMPL) which is promoted by Shapoorji Pallonji & Company Private Limited, a flagship company of Shapoorji Pallonji Group.

KRMPL is a Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV) established to act as the concessionaire, to design, finance, renovate/build, operate and maintain multiple sewage treatment plants (STPs) and associated infrastructure in the city of Kanpur, Uttar-Pradesh (UP).

According to the police the company had learnt that somebody had by using the name of the group made a fake email id and sent an email with confidential documents to PTC India which promotes PFS, a Non-Banking Finance Company which is in infrastructure finance.

After the company approached the police, they registered a case against an unknown person under 468 of the Indian Penal Code for forgery for the purpose of cheating and for breach of confidentiality and privacy under section 72 of the Information Technology Act.

“Through technical details, we reached Girdhar Prabhu Kumar Naidu and called him to the police station, but he did not cooperate with the investigators after which he was arrested. A local court has remanded him to five days police custody,” said a police officer from Colaba police station.

As he was a consultant with the Special Purpose Vehicle, he had access to some documents which he should not have shared and thus violated the conditions of the agreement between the companies.

“We are investigating why he shared the documents and what was the motive behind sharing the documents,” said a police officer from Colaba police station. The police said Naidu is a resident of Farrukhabad in Uttar Pradesh and originally hails from Chennai.