The court upheld the liberty of the accused while considering the nature and gravity of the charges, severity of the punishment, and the danger of justice being subverted.

JUDGMENT

Subramonium Prasad, J. - BAIL APPLN. 2831/2021 has been filed for grant of regular bail in FIR No. 39/2021 dated 07.02.2021 registered at Police Station Civil Lines for offences under Section 420 IPC.

2. BAIL APPLN. 2753/2021 has been filed for grant of regular bail in FIR No. 39/2021 dated 07.02.2021 registered at Police Station Civil Lines for offences under Section 420 IPC.

3. BAIL APPLN. 3877/2021 has been filed for grant of regular bail in FIR No. 39/2021 dated 07.02.2021 registered at Police Station Civil Lines for offences under Section 420 IPC.

4. The facts in brief leading to the instant petitions are as follows:-

i. The complainant states that she uploaded certain articles up for sale on OLX website. In response to her offer of sale, she got a call from mobile No.8099320332 by one Raghuvendra Singh, who offered Rs.21,000/- for the said items, to which the complainant agreed and the transaction was to be done through online payment mode. A dummy transaction of Rs.21/- was agreed done by Raghuvendra to verify the correctness of the transaction.

ii. It is stated that Raghavendra Singh resisted to do a complete transaction through internet banking and insisted to make transactions in tranches on Paytm, Google Pay, HDFC and SBI. It is stated that the complainant transferred a total of Rs.34,000/-. After which, the complainant was not able to contact the said Raghavendra Singh after calling multiple times and suspected that she had been defrauded by the said person.

iii. Based on this information, FIR No.39/2021 dated 07.02.2021 registered at Police Station Civil Lines for offences under Section 420 IPC. SI Kishan Chand and SI Rohit, in charge of Cyber Crime Cell, North District, Maurice Nagar were assigned the case and made efforts to understand the modus operandi and to nab the accused persons.

5. After preliminary enquiries, one Kapil Kumar Rajoria, a student of 12th Standard stated that he made friends with petitioner Manvendra Singh, who allegedly lured him with a sum Rs.1,000/- if he owned a bank account and operated a phone number under a fictitious name and address. It is stated that Kapil Kumar Rajoria opened a bank account accordingly and the ATM card cheque book was with Manvendra Singh.

i. It is stated that Kapil Kumar Rajoria was arrested from Anandpuri, Mathura, U.P. and was remanded to Police custody for two days. The involvement of other accused was revealed to the Police.

ii. Based on revelations, Petitioner/Sajid was interrogated, he stated that he is a taxi driver and had made friends with Petitioner/Waris, who allegedly enticed him to open a fake bank account with a sum Rs.2,000/- if he owned a bank account and operated a phone number under a fictitious name and address. Accordingly, Sajid opened numerous bank accounts with HDFC bank, ICICI bank, IDBI bank, IPO Bank, Fincare Small Finance Bank. Sajid further allegedly disclosed that before depositing money in the abovementioned accounts, Waris would call him and inform him. On checking the statements of these bank accounts, it was noticed that on 07.02.2021 a payment of Rs.20,000/- was deposited by Waris into Sajids Indian Post Payments Bank account. Petitioner/Sajid was arrested on 11.02.2021.

iii. Further joint enquiries by the Cyber Cell and the Police, got them in contact with the Petitioner/Manvendra Singh, who stated that he was preparing for a government job and had made friends with Petitioner/Waris who allegedly lured him to commit online frauds and told him that online bank accounts with fictitious addresses had already been opened and the stage was set to dupe people without any detection. Petitioner/Waris allegedly told him that he would be paid Rs.5,000/- per transaction for each account. Petitioner/Manvendra Singh was arrested on 11.02.2021.

iv. After this, on 13.02.2021, the three accused persons, namely, Kapil Kumar Rajoria, Sajid, and Manvendra Singh were produced before the learned Magistrate, who remanded them to 14 days judicial custody