The Supreme Court on Tuesday ordered the Telangana High Court to reconsider a plea filed by Shaadi.com founder Anupam Mittal to quash a criminal case filed against him over the platform's alleged failure to verify details of a man who allegedly used the matrimonial website to defraud a woman [Anupam Mittal vs. State of Telangana & Anr.].
A Bench of Justice PK Mishra and Justice NV Anjaria passed the order after noting that the High Court’s earlier order refusing Mittal relief did not record any submissions on the merits of his plea.
Rather, the Telangana High Court had only observed that since the charges involved offences punishable with less than seven years, the investigation against Mittal could continue.
The High Court has now been asked to reconsider the matter by examining the merits of Mittal's arguments on whether the criminal case against him would stand, given the allegations levelled in the case.
"Since the quashing petition has not been decided on merits, we set aside the impugned order and remit the matter to the high court to consideration on merits. Accordingly the criminal cases are restored to their original file. The same shall be dealt with by the high court on its merits. This court has not expressed any opinion on merits," the Supreme Court said.
Meanwhile, the Court also granted interim protection to Mittal and ordered that no coercive action be taken against him for the next eight weeks.
The criminal case against the Shaadi.com founder rests on allegations that the matrimonial website failed to properly verify a user’s identity, which enabled this user to defraud a woman of over ₹10 lakh.
Today, Senior Advocate Atmaram Nadkarni, appearing for Mittal, submitted that the company was being wrongly implicated in a case of cheating. He contended that Shaadi.com functions only as an intermediary.
"We are running Shaadi.com. We are only a matchmaker. I am the MD. One employee was arrested, he was released on bail. They say I have not complied with 79 of the IT act etc. this is a case of cheating," argued Nadkarni.
“You are facilitating the fraud that’s why," the Court replied.
“I am just facilitating matching," Nadkarni responded.
The Telangana government's counsel opposed the quashing plea, adding that a company relationship manager had interacted with and filtered the matrimonial profiles involved.
“The Relationship Manager of their company went and gave the profiles. He had to go through the filtration,” the counsel said.
Nadkarni, however, countered that the alleged fraud did not happen on the platform.
“They chatted on WhatsApp. They just met on Shaadi.com,” he said.
Nadkarni added that the company was cooperating with the investigation.
"We are cooperating with the investigation. But why am I an accused?" he asked.
The Court, however, eventually redirected Mittal to the Telangana High Court and asked it to reconsider the Shaadi.com founder's quashing plea, this time on merits.
Mittal was represented by Senior Advocates Nadkarni and Gaurav Aggarwal along with advocates Zulfiquar Memom, Waseem Pangarkar, Vivek Jain, Nadiya Sarguroh, Swapnil Srivastava, Allan David, Jayesh Srivastava, Chaitri Kashyap, and Rishab Periwal instructed by MZM Legal LLP.
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