The court held that bail under Section 482 of BNSS is discretionary and not warranted when custodial interrogation is necessary for ongoing investigations.

ORDER

This Bail Application is filed under Section 482 of Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita (for short, BNSS ). 2. Petitioner is the accused in Crime No.1360/2024 of Cherthala Police Station, Alappuzha. The above case is registered against the petitioner alleging offences punishable under Sections 406 , 419, 420, 468 , 471 and 506 read with Section 34 of the Indian Penal Code . The offence under Section 66 (D) of the Information Technology Act, 2000 is also alleged. Annexure-A1 is the First Information Report.

3. The prosecution case is that, during the period from September, 2023 to 13.05.2024, the accused mislead the defacto complainant stating that they are the officials of INVESCO CAPITAL GOLDMAN SACHS. It is alleged that the accused offered huge profit if the defacto complainant deposit amount in their company. Accordingly the defacto complainant and his wife transferred about Rs.7,65,00,000/-. But the accused cheated the defacto complainant and demanded huge amount for getting back the deposit. Hence it is alleged that the accused committed the offence.

4. Heard Adv.Saimon Farooqui, the learned counsel for the petitioner and the learned Senior Public Prosecutor.

5. This bail application was moved as ‘today moving’ on 27.03.2025. Adv.Saimon Farooqui submitted before this Court that the petitioner is undergoing detention in connection with a case pending before the Additional Chief Judicial Magistrate Court, Ahmedabad. The petitioner was arrested earlier by Ahamedabad Police on 04.10.2024 in connection with FIR No.113/2024 registered with Ahmedabad Cyber Crime Police Station. It 1is further submitted that the accused is facing trial in Ahmedabad before the Additional Chief Judicial Magistrate Court, as stated above. It is also submitted that the petitioner was implicated as an accused in FIR No.310/2024, registered with the Cyber Crime Police Station, Visakhapatnam. The petitioner was arrested in connection with the above case on 23.11.2024 by Cyber Crime Police Station, Visakhapatnam. It is also submitted that the Sessions Court, Visakhapatnam granted bail to the petitioner in that case, as evident by Annexure-A4. It is the contention of the petitioner that in both the above cases, the petitioner was arrested solely on the basis of statements of co-accused persons. The contention of the petitioner is that in this case also, the petitioner was implicated based on the statement of the co-accused. The counsel further submitted that the petitioner was already interrogated by the Kerala Police from Ahmedabad jail. Now the Kerala Police obtained a Prisoner Transit Warrant and seeking permission from the Court at Ahmedabad to get custody of the petitioner. Therefore this bail application is filed.

6. When this bail application came up for consideration on 27.03.2025, this Court directed the Public Prosecutor to get instructions and the case is listed today as first item. The Public Prosecutor submitted that custodial interrogation of the petitioner is necessary. There is serious allegation against the petitioner. The petitioner is the main culprit of an online fraud. Unless custodial interrogation is obtained, the investigation cannot be completed.

7. This Court considered the contentions of the petitioner and the Public Prosecutor. The counsel for the petitioner relied on the judgment of the Apex court in Dhanraj Aswani v. Amar S. Mulchandani and Another [ (2024) 10 SCC 336 ]. The counsel takes me through paragraphs 62 and 66 of the above judgment. It will be better to extract paragraphs

62 and 66:

62. It was also submitted by the appellant that as the object of Section 438 of the CrPC was to prevent an accused from the humiliation of arrest, the protective cover of the provision would not include within its ambit a person who is already in custody. In other words, a person once arrested in relation to an offence, cannot be said to suffer further humiliation for any subsequent arrest which may take place, and thus, the relief of ant