(i) Fraud is defined as an intentional or deliberate deception to secure an unfair or unlawful gain or to deprive a victim of a legal right . It is an act or course of deception, an intentional concealment, omission or perversion of truth to (a) gain unlawful or unfair advantage (b) induce another to part with some valuable item or surrender a legal right or (c) inflict injury in some manner or, it is an act of corrupt ion .

(ii) In financial parlance, a fraud could be defined as 'a deliberate act of omission or commission committed by one or more persons in connivance with one another in a financial transaction or in the books of accounts of a financial institution , maintained manually or under electronic/computer systems, resulting in a wrongful gain to such persons for a temporary period or otherwise, with or without any monetary loss to the financial institution.