ORDER

Date : 07.09.2022 Heard Ms. P. Borah, learned counsel appearing for the accused petitioner as well as Mr. B. B. Gogoi, learned Addl. P.P., Assam appearing for the State respondent.

By this petition under Section 439 Cr.P.C., the accused-petitioner, namely, Sri Rajani Gogoi, has prayed for grant of bail in connection with BI(EO) P.S. Case No.19/2020 under Sections 120B/406/420 of the IPC read with Section 4/5/6 of Prize Chits and Money Circulation Scheme (Banning) Act r/w Section 5 of Assam Protection of Interests of Depositors Act.

The case diary, as called for, is placed before the Court.

Ms. P. Borah, learned counsel appearing for the accused petitioner, submits that the accused is under judicial custody for 36 days despite he was no way involved with the offences alleged in the FIR. Ms. Bora further submits that the accused was initially functioning as an agent of the company till 2014 and he had been collecting money and deposited the same with the Director concerned. According to Ms. Bora, in the later part of 2014, the accused petitioner along with some others were appointed as the Director of the Response Real Estate & Construction (P) Ltd., by the earlier set of Directors of the company. Thereafter, the earlier set of Directors fled away and in the meantime, the company was closed down. It has been further stated that during the tenure of the accused petitioner, the collection of money was stopped. Therefore, Ms. Bora submits that the entire case is based on documents and as all the relevant documents are seized, further continuation of detention of the accused petitioner in the interest of investigation is not warranted.

Opposing the bail application, Mr. B. B. Gogoi, learned Addl. Public Prosecutor, submits that the case diary reveals that the accused petitioner, who was one of the Directors of Response Real Estate & Construction (P) Ltd., and his associate Directors collected several crores of Rupees under various schemes from the public subscribers/investors and then misappropriated the collected amount. According to Mr. Gogoi, the said company was then closed down abruptly without notice. Therefore, Mr. Gogoi vehemently submits that if the liberty of bail is granted to the accused petitioner, the ongoing fair investigation into the instant socio-economic alleged offences may likely to be hindered.

The accused petitioner has been in judicial custody since 02.08.2022, i.e. for 36 days.

The matter, inter-alia, relates to collection of huge money illegally from public through various fraudulent schemes without having any permission/authorisation from RBI by a company, namely, ‘Response Real Estate & Construction (P) Ltd.

On scrutiny of the case diary, it is, inter-alia, revealed that in the year 2004, the accused petitioner was working with a company, namely, Rose Valley Pvt. Ltd. as agent and, thereafter, in 2009, the name of the said company was changed to Response Real Estate & Construction Pvt. Ltd. At a later stage, the accused petitioner became its Director. The present accused and his Directors collected subscriptions from the public under various fixed deposit/recurring schemes. The investigation so far reveals that they collected Rs. 10,80,00000/- (Ten Crores Eighty Lakhs) across the State. The aforesaid entire amount was misappropriated and abruptly closed down the company. The said company had no requisite license or permission from the RBI or SEBI to run collective investment schemes.

The case diary also reveals that out of the aforesaid misappropriated amount, documents covering public investment amounting to Rs. 16,93,720/- only, have been seized from the agents.

Thus, it is noticed that investigation into the aforesaid large scale socio-

economic offence committed in Assam is yet to be completed.

However, it is noticed that based on the same set of allegations, earlier four cases, being Sivasagar PS Case No.281/2014; North Lakhimpur PS Case No.349/2014;

th Jorhat PS Case No.468/2014 and Golaghat PS Case No.465