Two techies held for stealing source code

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Hyderabad: Two software engineers were arrested on Thursday for allegedly stealing patented source code and other important data from a software firm based at Kushaiguda and selling it to a Bengaluru-based company.
The CID’s Cybercrime police arrested Boyina Venkata Ramana, 45, former general manager of MIC Limited, and M.N.S. Srinivas, 41, another former employee of the company for stealing the source code, applications, technology designs, and layouts of an important project from MIC Limited and selling them to its competitor GGTronics Private Limited, based at Bengaluru.
“The stolen source codes and project layouts were connected to the ‘True Color Video Display Board’, which is supplied to the Indian Railways by MIC. After the duo sold the source code to GGTronics, they applied to the Railways for the next phase of tenders, and emerged as a competitor to MIC, which already had a patent for the project,” said T. Krishna Prasad, Additional DG of CID.The accused, who had quit the company recently, copied data pertaining to the project in storage devices before leaving.
“Later they negotiated with different companies and sold it to GGTronics. Ramana received `35 lakh while Srinivas got `8 lakh,” said investigation officer Y. Yadgiri, DSP of Cybercrime, CID.The managing director of MIC lodged a complaint with the CID after MIC officials realised that their patented product was being produced by GGTronics and that the company had applied for the new tender to supply the True Color Video display board to Indian Railways.
The investigation officer said that the duo had stolen the data regarding the project between September 2012 and March 2013. The CID raided GGTronics Pvt. Ltd in Bengaluru and found the design layouts of MIC being used. Later the police raided the house of Ramana where he had set up a small office for GGTronics to help them update the project.
The DSP said that Ramana had negotiated with various companies in Hyderabad too to sell the stolen project. “GGTronics was aware that the codes were stolen from his previous company,” Yadgiri added.
The CID has booked a case against the duo under Sections 65, 66 read with 43 a, b and j of the Information Technology Act, Section 120 of the Indian Patents Act, and Section 408, 420 of the Indian Penal Code.