Days after a Magistrate Court in Ulhasnagar issued criminal proceedings under cheating and fraud against it's India head Amit Agarwal, online shopping giant Amazon has moved the Bombay High Court challenging the proceedings. It claimed that the complaint filed against it doesn't make out any case of cheating or fraud.
Notably, the Magistrate court in Ulhasnagar had initiated criminal proceedings on a complaint filed by advocate Amritpal Singh Khalsa, who had ordered a harddisk on Amazon. He had paid Rs 3,999 for the product, which was to be delivered by a contact seller from Bangalore.
However, Khalsa claimed that when he tracked the delivery, he found that it was sent to Pimpri Chinchwad near Pune and later on was again sent back to the godown at Rajkot. He demanded a refund of his money, to which, he alleged that he was denied the same.
Accordingly, the Magistrate, after scrutinising the material on record as also a police report, initiated criminal proceedings against Agarwal under cheating and fraud.
In it's plea, Amazon claimed that Agarwal wasn't involved in the day-to-day operations of the e-commerce giant. It claimed that there wasn't any allegation made by Khalsa against Agarwal of having any dishonest intention to cheat him.
"The Magistrate failed to consider that Amazon is not the seller or manufacturer of the product but is merely an online marketplace thereby entitling it to protection under Section 79 of Information Technology, 2021 (as intermediary)," the plea stated.
The plea further claimed that the due procedure wasn't followed either by Khalsa or the local Police in pursuing the complaint. It claimed that the police investigated into Khalsa's contentions in a very casual manner and submitted it's final report suggesting proceedings only on the ground that the company didn't respond to their notice.
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