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6. On the basis of that preliminary evidence and findings of a probe report of the Computer Emergency Response Team, New Delhi, Crime No.12/2019 was registered at Economic Offences Wing, Bhopal (M.P.) for the offence punishable under Sections 120-B, 420, 467, 468, 471 of the IPC, Section 66 of the Information Technology Act, 2000 and Section 7 read with Section 13(2) of the Prevention of Corruption Act against applicant and other co-accused persons.

7. From the report of the Computer Emergency Response Team, New Delhi and the other evidence collected by the investigating agency during investigation it was found that in the year 2016, OSMO Pvt. Ltd. applicant Varun Chaturvedi and co-accused Vinay Choudhary, the Managing Directors of OSMO and co-accused Sumit Golwalkar, the Marketing Director of that 4 MCRC-26782-2020 company entered into an agreement with Antares Ltd. in order to check the reasons why the whole system of E-tendering had slowed down and was engaged to conduct a performance test of the E-tendering system and come up with concrete steps to tackle the slow speed. During the performance test, OSMO was provided with user IDs and Bidder IDs by Antares Ltd. In the month of June 2016, OSMO stated that it was not able to conduct a performance test of the whole system and thus could not complete the process of testing.

10. Learned counsel appearing on behalf of the applicant submitted that the applicant is innocent and has falsely been implicated in the offence. Learned counsel further submitted that it is alleged that applicant Varun Chaturvedi and co-accused Vinay Choudhary in connivance with other co- accused persons manipulated the bids, but the present applicant has no role to play in the functioning of e-Procurement Software (Portal). It is alleged that the manipulation was done by one of the user ID and bid IDs given to OSMO 6 MCRC-26782-2020 at the time of performance test and the IP address registered while creating the said demo file was 27.60.163.98 and 27.60.185.14, which were found linked with mobile No.9755092919. The SIM of this mobile number was registered in the name of co-accused Vinay Choudhary and was being used by applicant Varun Chaturvedi. But, OSMO in the year 2016 had left the job of performance testing and also gave the information to the effect to the MPSIDC. Thereafter, there is no role of the applicant in the functioning of the e-procurement portal. The I.P. address of any device is automatically changed when that device moves from one place to another place. He further submitted that from the CDR / IPDR report provided by the Airtel it appears that 69 mobile numbers were linked with I.P. address 27.60.163.98 and 50 other mobile numbers were linked with I.P. address 27.60.185.141 at the relevant point of time and there is no entry of MPSEDC server IPs in the CDR / IPDR report, which shows that both the IP address i.e. 27.60.163.98 & 27.60.185.141 were not used for manipulating the tender. He further submitted that from the report of Computer Emergency Response Team, New Delhi also it is clear that the said I.P. addresses were not used for manipulating the tender.