The Supreme Court (SC) has refused to quash the criminal proceedings against M/s Ideaforge Technology Limited, a prominent drone manufacturing company, in connection with allegations of criminal breach of trust, cheating and unauthorised software disabling of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs).
The SC Bench led by Justice JB Pardiwala and Justice R Mahadevan dismissed the quash petition upholding the order passed by the Madras High Court earlier this year. SC observed that there is a prima facie criminal case of cheating and ordered Ideaforge to appear before the trial court.
The Court further refused the plea to exempt the directors of Ideaforge from appearing in the trial court clearly showing their involvement in this criminal offence of hacking drones.
M/s Ideaforge Technology Limited, headquartered in Navi Mumbai, had supplied 15 UAVs to a Customer for a total amount of `2,20,67,050.
As per the final report filed by the Cyber Crime Police, Ideaforge hacked and disabled the drones with the malicious intent to damage the customer's business and reputation as the drones were deployed in crucial government projects worth around `70 Crore.
A Complaint was filed by the customer before the Commissioner of Police, Chennai and FIR No 235 of 2023 dated August 31, 2023 was registered by the Cyber Crime Police. Initially, Ideaforge filed a quash petition before the Madras High Court to quash the FIR, which was earlier dismissed by the Court on in November 2023.
After the Final Report was filed, Ideaforge filed this present quash petition against the proceedings held vide before the Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate (ACMM) for CCB cases, Egmore.
The final report was filed under sections 409 and 65 of IPC and Section 66 r/w 45 of IT Act, 2008 r/w 420 IPC against the Company Ideaforge Technology Limited, Directors, Ankit Mehta, Rahul Singh, Vipul Joshi and Executive Director Somil Gautam.
On January 31, 2025, the Madras High Court further dismissed the quash petition on the chargesheet forcing them to appear before the Supreme Court.
A recent response from an agitated IdeaForge investor highlighted how the company fell after going for IPO in July 2023.
IdeaForge reportedly received close to `240 Crore during the IPO and around `327 Crore were offered to the public. The shocking statistics pointed out by the investor show a meagre profit of `2 Crore in the third quarter followed by abundant losses of `12 Crore and `20 Crore in subsequent quarters.
The Investors raised severe concerns over the unpredictability of the IdeaForge finances which could potentially lead to even bigger loss as per the trend followed by the Company subsequent to the IPO in 2023.
