Telangana High Court Refuses To Give Relief To Director Of Shaadi.com

Hyderabad: The Telangana High Court has refused to grant relief to Shaadi.com director Anupam Mittal and two employees, directing them to face trial in a case involving cheating a woman of `11 lakh through a fake matrimonial profile.

The court declined to quash the FIR registered against Mittal, LIM leader Vignesh, and manager Satish, who have been named as accused alongside Vamshi Krishna. According to the complaint, Vamshi Krishna created a fake profile of one Cherukuri Harsha on the platform using the photograph of a Yanam MLA from Andhra Pradesh, falsely claiming Harsha was from Rajahmundry.

Seeing the profile, a doctor from Jubilee Hills, Hyderabad, contacted Krishna, after which he allegedly extorted `11 lakh from her, claiming his mother was a doctor residing in the United States. When she demanded the money back, he reportedly threatened to morph her photographs and upload them on social media, demanding an additional `10 lakh. The woman then approached the Jubilee Hills police, who registered the case on February 25.

During the investigation, police found that similar frauds had been carried out using the platform. The three Shaadi.com officials moved the High Court seeking dismissal of the case, claiming they had no role in profile creation and that financial transactions between users were beyond the purview of the website. They contended that as service providers, they were not responsible for verifying the authenticity of profiles.

However, additional public prosecutor Jitender Veeramalla objected to the contentions and argued that the website has been allowing anybody to post anything under premium services without examining the details of the parties. Veeramalla argued this is nothing but negligence on the part of the website.