Delhi High Court: In a bail application filed by accused (bail-applicant) under Section 438 of the Criminal Procedure Code (CrPC) seeking a grant of anticipatory bail due to an FIR registered under Sections 419, 420, 468, 471, 120-B and 34 of Penal Code, 1860 (IPC), Amit Sharma, J. rejected anticipatory bail to the accused because the grant of the same would prejudice the ongoing investigation in the present FIR.
In the present case, Lucky and his associates were involved in cheating people and obtaining money from them on the pretext of getting their loans sanctioned under the ‘Pradhan Mantri Mudra Loan’ by opening several fake bank accounts. Lucky was apprehended and named people who were involved with him. One of the named people was of the accused.
Counsel appearing on behalf of the petitioner submitted that the accused was not named in the FIR and has only been made an accused based on the statement of Lucky, who is the main accused. It was submitted that the accused is a well-educated man who began working at Just Dial in December 2016 as a Relationship Manager.
The Court noted that as per the status report the name of the accused appeared from the very beginning of the case in the interrogation. There are money transactions between the accounts of co-accused Mintu Kumar and the applicant and between the fake account recovered from co-accused Lucky and the applicant. As per JustDial, 158 business listings had been registered on JustDial through the applicant, out of which 44 business listings (company/ vendor) were fake.
The Court further noted that information was provided to the investigating agency by JustDial that the accused facilitated the opening of several companies fraudulently on the portal of Justdial in the names of co-accused Mintu, Lucky and Deepak. Despite repeated directions, he did not provide details/documents that he submitted to open these companies in the name of the said co-accused person.
The Court concluded that the accused was actively involved in supplying data to his co-accused persons and his link with the said co-accused persons has sufficiently come on record. The investigation conducted so far has clearly brought out that the accused was prima facie involved in the whole conspiracy with the other co-accused persons cheating innocent loan seekers by obtaining money from them on the pretext of getting their loan sanctioned under the aforesaid ‘Pradhan Mantri Mudra Loan’.
Thus, the Court held that the grant of anticipatory bail to the accused would prejudice the ongoing investigation in the present FIR, thus, custodial interrogation of the applicant is required.
[Haresh Kumar Chaudhary v State NCT of Delhi, 2023 SCC OnLine Del 1877, decided on 29-03-2023]
Advocates who appeared in this case :
Mr. Aditya Kumar Choudhary, Mr. Gurmehar Vaan Singh, Mr. Mrigank Bhardwaj, Mr. Raja Choudhary, Advocates for bail – Applicant;
Mr. Aman Usman, APP for the State with A.S.I. Vinay Tyagi, P.S. Crime Branch, Delhi Advocate for Respondent.