Bizman gets 3-year prison term for cyberstalking wife by hacking email

CHENNAI: A Tamil Nadu businessman who hacked his wife’s Gmail account when they were separated and cyber-stalked her for a month was found guilty by a court in Coimbatore. He was sentenced to three years imprisonment.

The Cyber Crime Cell of Coimbatore City Police had registered a case in early 2018 under Section 354 D (Stalking) of IPC and Section 66 C of the IT Act (fraudulently or dishonestly making use of the electronic signature, password of any other person).

“While the original IPC Section 354 D dealt only with physical stalking, an amendment to the Act included cyber-stalking as an offence too,” assistant public prosecutor, K Prasanna Venkatesh said. Section 354D (ii) states that any man who monitors a woman’s use of the internet, email or any other form of electronic communication, commits the offence of stalking.

In this instance, the complainant Sita* had been married to the accused, Raman* in 2015 in Tiruchy. According to the prosecution, due to mounting debts to the tune of Rs 10 crore of her husband’s family, the couple shifted initially to Jolarpet and then to Coimbatore, where Raman had set up a car accessory store in 2016 at RS Puram.

They had a child in March 2017 after which they became estranged due to differences in their marriage. On January 17, 2018, they moved the family court for divorce by mutual consent.

Within a week of filing a petition for divorce, Sita received an alert in her work email on January 21 that there had been an attempt to change password for her personal mail ID. Two days later, she got another alert that her personal mail ID was being operated from a mobile phone.

On January 24, 2018, she got a third alert that the recovery phone number was changed for her personal mail ID. When she tried to access her personal mail ID, she realised that her password was changed. When she tried to recover it, the recovery mail ID was also changed after which she realised that she had been hacked.

When she approached the Cyber Crime Cell of Coimbatore city, they liaised with Google and obtained the IP logs. Based on the information from telecom operators, they found a phone number from which Sita’s emails were used.

“When the phone number was shown to Sita, she told the investigators that it was her husband’s,” according to the prosecution.

Sita filed an official complaint against him. She said that her husband knew passwords of her mail ID when they were together. After separation, she had changed the passwords and created a new mail personal mail ID too. Despite that, he had hacked into her mails and monitored her activities.

During cross examination, when Raman insinuated that he had accessed her mail with her permission, Sita vehemently denied it. During the course of the trial, a family court had also granted divorce to the couple.

Judicial Magistrate R Saravana Babu, who perused the submissions from both sides, held that the prosecution had proved the husband’s offence with all relevant documentary evidence and declined his request to be given a lesser punishment.

“The accused, in this instance, has harassed the woman, whom he had lived with as husband and wife. After being separated, instead of allowing her to move on and lead a good life, he had indulged in activities that caused her mental agony. In the view of this court, the lesser sentencing plea by the accused cannot be entertained,” he noted and held the man guilty on both counts.

He was sentenced to 3 years imprisonment under sections 354 (D) and 66 C of the IT Act. He was also served a fine of Rs 10,000.

(*Names changed)