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Petitioner is the accused in C.C.526 of 2016 pending before the Judicial First Class Magistrate-I, Parappanangadi, which arose out of the final report in crime 250/2005 of Thenjipalam police station. The petitioner faces allegations under Section 420 of the IPC besides Sections 4 and 20 of the Indian Telegraph Act and Sections 3 and 6 of Indian Wireless and Telegraphy Act. That crime was registered on the basis of a written complaint given by Vijay Krishnamoorthi, Assistant Divisional Engineer, Telecom Vigilance and Telecom Monitoring, Department of Telecommunications and I.T., Government of India. That complaint is produced and marked as Annexure-IV in the Crl.M.C. The petitioner contends that she is totally innocent and has been falsely implicated in the crime. She is running a Public Call Office (PCO) having three connections of Reliance Infocom Ltd. with telephone numbers 0494-3093845, 0494-3093348 and 0494-3093285 besides she has a BSNL land phone connection 0494-2492333. The BSNL connection is in the name of her husband. While so, alleging that she had conducted a parallel telephone exchange, the crime was registered and she has been summoned by the Magistrate. She admits that she used to get missed calls in the BSNL connection from abroad and a caller ID is connected to the said phone. It did not have ISD facility. But on getting such missed calls she used to call back in any of the three reliance telephone numbers. According to the petitioner, that will not attract any offence against the petitioner. According to her ,there is no allegation that she had used any unauthorised telegraph or unauthorised apparatus. Receiving a missed call on BSNL phone, basing on it calling back through the Reliance phones cannot attract penal provisions under the Indian Telegraph Act or Indian Wireless and Telegraphy Act. There is no element of criminality nor element of cheating is involved in it. Even though it is stated that the BSNL had suffered a loss of Rs.91,800/-, there is absolutely no basis for the same. Such a PCO was operated as a self employment venture, that she has been falsely implicated in the criminal charge. Therefore the entire proceedings are sought to be quashed.

5. On the other hand, Sri. Hrithwick, the learned Senior Public Prosecutor pointed out that the case was booked after finding that she was running a parallel telephone exchange. He also submitted that earlier Crl.M.C.3497/2005 filed by the petitioner was dismissed for non prosecution by the order of this Court on 07.09.2009. Such matters should be viewed very seriously and we do not know whether anti-national elements also were using such a facility.

6. Mr. Mathews K. Philip, the learned Standing Counsel for the BSNL submitted that the crime was registered on the basis of the intimation given by the Telecom Vigilance Monitoring Department and that international calls are allowed to be made on revenue sharing basis and when such international conference calls are done, it cause revenue loss to the Telecom department and therefore such a case is maintainable against the petitioner.

7. After hearing counsel on both sides, for numerous reasons, I am not convinced that the case should be quashed at the threshold. Firstly, as pointed out by the learned Public Prosecutor, it is a case in which the allegation is that the petitioner had been running a parallel telephone exchange that too for the purpose of making international calls. At the first blush it may seem very simple and innocuous that she used to get missed calls in the BSNL land line which is having a caller ID and looking at the missed call numbers, people were allowed to use the Reliance phone for making ISD calls. The Annexure- IV report indicates that during an inspection of Reliance number, i.e. 0494- 3093348 which admittedly belongs to the petitioner, it was noticed that a caller line identity with an international call had come and that it was observed that international call conference was being done with three numbers and BSNL number was used for identifying calls from abroad. Thus, illegal conference was done with ISD number at one end and STD/local numbers at the other end thereby setting a manual trunk telephone international exchange. So he reported that it amounts to violation of Sections 4 and 20 of the Indian Telegraph Act and Sections 3 and 6 of the Indian Wireless and Telegraphy Act.