A magistrate court in Girgaon has granted bail to a man booked for cheating two persons with the promise of a blue tick or verified Instagram account, in exchange for payment.
A Girgaon magistrate court granted bail earlier this month to Latishkumar Sharma, booked in two separate complaints of similar fraud.
Appearing for Sharma’s bail in both cases, his advocate Ibrahim Shaikh told the court that Sharma is falsely implicated in the case with an ulterior motive and that on the mere statement of the complainant, he was arrested. It was also canvassed that he belonged to a respectable family and had no criminal antecedents.
Magistrate NA Patel said in his order that two crimes are registered against the accused and it will take time to complete the investigation, till then, he cannot be kept behind bars. The court directed Sharma to cooperate with the police while on bail.
A complaint was filed by a 30-year-old woman, a resident of Malabar Hill and a digital marketing professional. The woman had said in her complaint that she had got acquainted with Sharma through Instagram in 2016 and that he ran a company Lion Media News.
She had asked him if he provided verification service and he had replied in the affirmative and stated Rs. 40,000 for the ‘service’, but that he would do it for Rs. 35,000 for her.
He then asked her to pay 50 percent of the amount and she made payment of Rs. 10,000. Later, the work was not done, and Sharma’s phone was switched off. After a few days, he agreed to make a refund, but nothing as such happened and she realised that she had been duped.
