Delhi Court sends man to 2-day police custody for duping ex-CJI R M Lodha of Rs 1 lakh

A man arrested for allegedly duping former Chief Justice of India R M Lodha of Rs 1 lakh, by hacking his colleague's e-mail account, was sent to two-day police custody by a Delhi court on Wednesday.

Duty Magistrate Anjani Mahajan allowed police the custodial interrogation of Dinesh Mali, nabbed from Udaipur earlier this month, after he was produced before the court here, said DCP South Delhi, Vijay Kumar.

The police had sought two-day custody of the accused. It may seek further custody since the investigation is still going on, Kumar said, adding that the accused was brought from Udaipur on Tuesday.

The incident came to light on May 30 after Lodha, a resident of South Delhi's Panchsheel Park, received an e-mail from retired Supreme Court judge B P Singh stating that his ID was hacked by some unknown person on the intervening night of April 18 and 19.

A case was registered on the basis of Lodha's complaint which alleged that Rs 1 lakh was transferred through RTGS from his account following the message received by him from the hacked e-mail ID, the police said.

A police team was sent to Udaipur to verify the details of the alleged account holder from SBI bank in which the amount was transferred. CCTV footage of the ATM kiosk from where the amount was withdrawn was also examined, the police said.

A request was sent to Gmail to provide details of the person who created the alleged fake e-mail id, it added.

According to the police, Mali deals in water purifiers and repair work.

During interrogation, Mali disclosed that Mukesh used to give him Rs 1,000 as commission for every transaction the latter made in Mali's bank account.

Police said that on analysing Mali's bank account, it was found that transactions worth Rs 4.5 lakh were done from across the country.

The amount is yet to be recovered, police said.