E-Paper
High Court rejects bail application of accused in GMAT exam scam
Kumar, Abhay Mishra, and their two other accomplices were involved in a fraud wherein they manipulated the exam results.
The Bombay High Court on August 11 rejected the anticipatory bail application of Kunal Kumar, one of the accused in the 2021 GMAT examination scam that took place in Pune. Kumar, Abhay Mishra, and their two other accomplices were involved in a fraud wherein they accessed the computers of aspirants with the help of a remote access app and manipulated the exam results. Moreover, the quartet extorted money from those students who had got marks in the higher range.
In October 2021, the accused were booked at Cyber Cell police station in the city for offences punishable under IPC sections 420, 1860, and sections 43(a), (f), (g), (i), 66C, and 66D of the Information Technology Act, 2018.
In the same month, the city police had busted the racket and arrested Mishra and Kumar in connection with the scam. In July 2023, Kumar’s bail application was rejected by the sessions court, after which he approached the high court.
According to the cyber police station complaint, the accused operated via an Instagram account GMAT_GRE_SHORTCUT, and ran the scam with the help of the Any Desk app wherein some of the accused obtained remote access to computers of respective students and solved papers in the GMAT exam in place of students and if students got desired marks, then they obtained money from those students.
The prosecution submitted that there was prima facie material available against the applicant in the form of WhatsApp chat and a diary maintained by the principal accused which indicate payment of ₹1.47 lakh being paid to the applicant and one more entry of ₹2.56 lakh.
The court in its order stated “In the context of observations made in the said order the WhatsApp chat between a witness and the applicant does have material bearing on the investigation. Therefore, custodial interrogation of the applicant is necessary. The efficacy of custodial interrogation has been explained by the Apex Court in the case of the State represented by CBI v. Anil Sharma reported in (1997) 7 SCC 187, in paragraph 6. The anticipatory bail application is, therefore, rejected,” the order stated.
