Police not serious about ATM frauds: HC

Saurabh Malik

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, December 2

Taking cognisance of the increasing number of ATM frauds, the Punjab and Haryana High Court has asserted that serious efforts on the part of the police are missing and thorough investigation is not being carried out to collect electronic evidence.

Justice Arun Kumar Tyagi directed the Director General of Police (DGP) to step in by issuing instructions on the collection of electronic proof and initiation of appropriate disciplinary action against investigating officers deliberately or negligently destroying evidence by not collecting it.

The directions by Justice Tyagi came in a fraud case, wherein an ATM’s CCTV footage was not seized by the police. Justice Tyagi observed that an FIR was registered on February 28, but serious efforts were not made by the investigating officer to arrest the petitioner-accused though the registration number of the car in which he fled was given.

Justice Tyagi directed forwarding of the order’s copy to the DGP for directing the competent authorities to take disciplinary action against the investigating officer for his failure to seize the ATM’s CCTV footage. Accused Rajender had moved the High Court against Haryana for anticipatory bail in the FIR registered for theft, cheating and another offence at the Sirsa City police station.

The state counsel, during the course of hearing, told the Bench that the petitioner, with a co-accused, had used some device for copying data from the ATM when the complainant used his card on the machine. The complainant became suspicious and caught hold of the co-accused, but the petitioner managed to escape. A swapping machine and 12 ATM cards of various banks were recovered from the co-accused. The petitioner was alleged to be present in the ATM booth and to have participated in the crime.

Dismissing the anticipatory bail plea, Justice Tyagi asserted that cases of fraud involving the use of ATMs for unauthorised withdrawal of money from bank accounts of persons by cloning their cards or by seeking disclosure of relevant information from them were on the rise.