The welfare of a child can outweigh the need for custodial interrogation in cases involving serious allegations, justifying the grant of anticipatory bail.

JUDGMENT :

1. Petitioner is involved in three cases of similar nature and filed three petitions for bail in all cases. Detail of one case is captioned above and remaining are given below:

2. The petitioner apprehending arrest in these FIRs has come up before this Court under Section 438 CrPC, 1973, seeking anticipatory bail by filing three different petitions.

3. Since all these petitions are related to similar nature of fraud and only difference among these is qua the amount, therefore, these petitions are being decided by this common order. For brevity, the facts are being taken from CRM-M No.30947 of 2024.

4. The facts and allegations are being taken from the reply filed by the State, which reads as follows:

“3. That the brief facts of the case are that a preliminary enquiry which was conducted by a SIT pertaining to higher education department upon which a preliminary inquiry No, 01 dated 29.06.2021 Narnaul, was registered which was duly approved from State Government vide 32/5/2021-4(1) dated 25.06.2021 and Edst. No. 9793/1-2/SVB(H) Dated 29.06.2021. The Chief Secretary Haryana Government vigilance department had directed the Director General, State Vigilance Bureau (now Anti Corruption Bureau,) Haryana Panchkula to conduct a preliminary inquiry vide letter no. order No 63/24/2022-1 dated 01.06.2022 upon this inquiry no. 01 dated 09.06.2022 was registered at The Director General State anti corruption Bureau and was received in the Anti Corruption Bureau Gurugram vide No. 9258/1-2/ACB dated 10.06.2022 of the Director General Anti Corruption Bureau Haryana Panchkula Office in which the following allegations were to be investigated.

4. That Rohitash Degree College and Rohitash College of Management Ateli Mahendergarh had prepared fake scholarship award rolls for Post Matric Scholarship Scheme in the year 2014-18 for Scheduled caste and Backward Class students and the same were sent to the Directorate of Higher Education Haryana Panchkula in connivance with unknown employees thereby causing huge loss to the extent of Rs 10,35,17,000/- by misappropriating the scholarship money which was given by Directorate of Higher Education Haryana. (Award Roll is annexed as Annexure R-1).

5. That after perusing the statements of witnesses record and as per the SIT report and as well as audit report obtained in the preliminary enquiry it was found that the Government of India provided financial assistance under the Post Matric Scholarship Scheme to the students of Scheduled Caste and Backward Class communities for pursuing higher education. The Department of Higher Education is responsible for scrutinizing all the documents submitted by the students, approving the claim of the actual beneficiary and paying the scholarship in case of under graduate and post graduate courses in Arts, Science Commerce and Management.

6. That the Department of Higher Education has to make the PMS payment for each student in two parts 1 directly to the college/institution in the form of management share fees and through Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT) into the bank NO//account of the students as they are linked to the Aadhaar number as maintenance allowance. Petitioner Rohitash the Chairman of Shri Mati Sarti Devi Educational Charitable Trust (regd) Ateli Mandi has opened Rohitash Decree College and Rohitash Institute of Management Ateli.

7. That in Rohitash Degree College students of B.A., B.SC, B. Com, M.A., M.SC, M. Com course are admitted and in Rohitash Insti