13 July,2015 04:52 PM IST | | Shiva Devnath
An FIR has been filed with the Malwani police against two former employees of Mulshi Natural Spring Water for allegedly downloading critical company data and passing it on to competition
The owner of a brand of bottled water, Mulshi Natural Spring Water, has filed an FIR with the Malwani Police Station against two of his former employees, for allegedly downloading company data and transferring it to competitors.
Both former employees allegedly downloaded data from the company when they were associated with it. The accused managed to retrieve information about the bottled water company's clients, including the transaction amounts.
On Saturday, the owner of the company, Navin Luthra, husband of actress Poonam Dasgupta, lodged an FIR against one Santosh Kale, who had stopped coming to work a week back after submitting his resignation, and had joined another former employee Mushtaq Rauf.
Representational picture
Kale, who handled logistics for the company, resigned on flimsy grounds. By virtue of his position, he had access to all vital information of the past and existing clients of the company. The accused, Kale, had uploaded a business application on his official Android phone, provided by the company, whereby all business-related data was immediately forwarded to an e-mail address.
The e-mail belonged to Mushtaq Rauf, an ex-employee of the company. Rauf had left Mulshi on December 31, 2014 to join a competitor. From this continuous feed of information received from Kale, Rauf tapped potential hotels and restaurants across the country, causing huge losses to Mulshi Natural Spring Water.
Owner speak
Luthra, director of Mulshi Natural Spring Water, told mid-day, "They both were associated with my company, but they left and joined another company after downloading my company data; they both began approaching my clients before I reached them, both are spoiling my business and providing water bottled at cheapest rate to my client, which is causing huge loss to my business.
"After Kale stopped coming to work, I was completely not aware that he has joined Mushtaq Rauf. On Friday, one of my employees saw both of them in a five-star hotel in Vile Parle. Then I came to know they both had shaken hands. They are spoiling my business, on being aware of this I filed an FIR with the Malwani police station."
Police speak
The Malwani police said, "We lodged an FIR against Santosh Kale and Mushtaq Rauf under Sections 408 (criminal breach of trust), 34 (common intention) of the IPC and 66, 43(A) of the IT Act. We are carrying out the necessary investigations; no arrest has been made so far."
