Court denies bail to execs booked for data theft

A city court on Monday rejected the anticipatory bail application of two former executives of a software company who were booked on charges of stealing proprietary data and the sources code of the firm.

A city court on Monday rejected the anticipatory bail application of two former executives of a software company who were booked on charges of stealing proprietary data and the sources code of the firm.

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An FIR under various sections of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) and IT Act was registered against the duo on the complaint of the CEO of Zen Focus in the Sector-40 police station, Gurgaon, on June 18.

The duo had moved the court of additional sessions judge Lal Chand on Monday seeking bail against arrest.

The court stated that the custodial interrogation of the petitioner is “necessary for proper investigation of the case and grant of pre-arrest bail would certainly be detrimental to the progress of the probe as allegations of theft of confidential data and forgery needs to be inquired”.

The judge observed that investigation would be hampered in the absence of assistance by the accused in disclosing the relevant passwords to reach the data.

The bail plea was, therefore, dismissed.

CEO Mike Dhall had filed an FIR against Devinder Mani and Parmod Kumar regarding theft and forgery.

The duo had allegedly stolen confidential data and the sources code and sold it to competitor companies due to which Zen Focus lost business worth R1.5 crore, the CEO claimed.

It was alleged that Mani had passed on important and confidential data to a rival another software company for which he was working.

Mani, the main accused in the case, was allegedly instigating other employees of Zen Focus to join him in the fraud and this was reported to the company top brass in May.

On May 17, Mani was called by the Sector-40 police but he did not appear and promised to join the probe within four days but he never turned up.

On June 4, the management of Zen Focus got to know that Mani had joined hands with a former employee Parmod Kumar and both of them were working for a rival company and sharing its (Zen Focus) internet secrets and other confidential information.

Zen Focus claimed it lost a contract worth crores to the same rival group.

Dhall said, “These are serious crimes and people should understand it. It is a white-collar crime, so one should be cautious and whoever suffers should immediately report it.”