Supreme Court Grants Anticipatory Bail In Case Over Grey Routing Of International Calls
The Supreme Court recently made the interim anticipatory bail granted to accused absolute in a case of "grey routing" where they were accused of illegally routing international calls as regular Indian local calls using special internet phone lines from Jio's enterprise networks.
A bench comprising Justice Aravind Kumar and Justice PB Varale made the earlier interim protection absolute after noting they had appeared before the Investigating Officer (IO) and had accordingly furnished their statements, a fact not disputed by the Respondent-State of Maharashtra. The Appellants, Pinky Rani and Amit Kumar, are directors of the M/s Srivansh Consulting Private Limited, against whom the allegation is that of hosting infrastructure and technical setup to host such calls.
The Appellants are accused of committing offences under Sections 318(4) read with 3(5) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS), 2023; Sections 3, 6 and 4 of the Indian Wireless Act, 1933 and Sections 20, 20A, 21 and 25 of the Indian Telegraph Act 1885 and they were denied bail by the trial Court and then by the Bombay High Court.
The case against these appellants is that the Department of Telecommunications (DoT), between April and July 2024, received complaints from people that some international calls were showing up in their mobile phones as local Indian calls. The matter was investigated by Jio, DoT and law enforcement, and it was found that these calls were illegally routed using SIP trunk lines to make it look like calls from within India mislead the recipients.
It was further alleged that the SIP lines were provided to M/s Humanity Path Private Limited, through M/s Web Werks in Mumbai, by M/s Srivansh. M/s Srivansh was running a technical setup for these calls by using 1000 phone numbers, and M/s Web Werks, was alleged to have been providing internet and hosting services.
During the investigation, the place belonging to one of the Appellants was inspected, and it was confirmed that illegal call routing was happening, and equipment like routers, servers that provided unauthorised use of internet calls were seized. It has been alleged that the illegal use of the facilities has incurred a financial loss of more than Rs.5 crores to the government.
While anticipatory bail was opposed by the State, the bench nevertheless found that custodial interrogation is not required because the State could not place any document to demonstrate that fresh material had been elicited after recording their statements.
"However, the learned counsel for the respondent-State would vehemently contend that in order to unearth the larger conspiracy and the misuse of internet facility, the custodial interrogation of the appellants was warranted. However, we are not inclined to accept the said submission for the simple reason that pursuant to the interim protection granted by this Court, the appellants have appeared before the IO, cooperated with the investigation and have tendered their statement. Nothing further has been placed on record to demonstrate that any fresh material has been elicited or unearthed after such recording of the statement of appellants which are serious enough to deny the bail."
Case Details: PINKY RANI ETC v STATE OF MAHARASHTRA|SLP(CRL.) NOS.16470-16471 OF 2025
Appearances: For Petitioner(s) :Mr. Rahul Shyam Bhandari, AOR Ms. G. Priyadharshni, Adv. Mr. Satyam Pathak, Adv. Ms. Anshita Sharma, Adv.
For Respondent(s) :Mr. Raman Yadav, Adv. Mr. Siddharth Dharmadhikari, Adv. Mr. Aaditya Aniruddha Pande, AOR Mr. Shrirang B. Varma, Adv.