IN THE HIGH COURT OF PUNJAB & HARYANA AT CHANDIGARH Date of decision: 25^th February, 2025 Kamalesh @ Kamlesh ...Petitioner Versus State of Punjab and another ...Respondents CORAM: HON'BLE MRS. JUSTICE MANISHA BATRA Present: Mr. Abhimanyu Singh, Advocate for the petitioner.

Ms. Sakshi Bakshi, Assistant Advocate General, Punjab.

Mr. Naveen Sharma, Advocate for the complainant.

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MANISHA BATRA, J (ORAL):-

The instant one is the fifth petition for grant of regular bail as filed by the petitioner in case bearing FIR No. 16 dated 12.02.2024 registered under Sections 419, 420 and 120-B of IPC and Sections 66-C and 66-D of Information Technology Act (Sections 465, 467, 468 and 471 of IPC added later on) at Police Station Model Town, Ludhiana. The previous petitions bearing CRM-M-38979-2024, CRM-M-31882-2024, CRM-M-

23935-2024 and CRM-M-48730-2024 had been dismissed as withdrawn.

2. As per the prosecution case, the complainant Sanjeev Jain, who is owner of a hosiery factory at Ludhiana and hails from Jain community, had received a call on his mobile phone number on 07.02.2024, the caller introduced himself as Parkash Rasik Lal Dhariwal, who is head of a committee of their community. The said Parkash Rasik Lal Dhariwal was known to the complainant as he used to donate huge sums of money for development of Jain Community and Jain temples. The caller told the complainant that he had collected some money from Ludhiana for the purpose of donation and asked the complainant to help him for delivering that money to Delhi or Mumbai, wherein he had been residing. The complainant expressed his inability to do so but on insistence of the caller that his act would be for the purpose of their religion and for construction of temples and other religious activities, which would stop otherwise, the complainant agreed. The caller then told him that his nephew who was already having Rs. 2,00,000,00/- in cash with him was coming to Ludhiana and would give money to him. He prevailed upon the complainant to give cash amount of Rs. 50,00,000/- through his known persons to his man at Delhi in exchange. The complainant agreed to do so.

3. As per the further allegations, on 08.02.2024, the complainant received a call from another cell phone number and the caller, while introducing him as Vivek Jain son of Parkash Rasik Lal Dhariwal represented to the complainant that he was coming to his place at Ludhiana with cash amount of Rs. 2,00,000,00/- and also induced the complainant to give an amount of Rs. 50,00,000/- in cash at Delhi. On being so induced, the complainant through his acquaintance at Delhi, was made to part with a sum of Rs. 50,00,000/- to two persons who had come to collect the same and whose names were told as Kishore Lunkar and Parmod Mehta by the caller. However, neither the abovesaid Vivek Jain nor any other person came to give back the money of the complainant and their phones were also switched off by the callers subsequently. Having realized that he had been cheated, the complainant reported the matter to the police.

3. After registration of FIR, investigation proceedings were initiated. During investigation, the tower locations of the cell phone numbers from which calls were received by the complainant, were obtained and they were found to be from Delhi. CCTV footage of the locations had also been taken and two youths were found taking a bag of currency notes given by the complainant in the CCTV camera. They were later on identified as accused Anas Saifi and Anas. They were arrested on 17.02.2024. Accused Anas Saifi disclosed that he had been called by co-accused Amir and Mohit and had collected bag of containing currency notes from a person. Accused Anas Saifi also got recovered an amount of Rs. 50,000/- from the cheated amount. Accused Amir was nominated as an accused. He was arrested on 18.02.2024 and suffered disclosure statement that he had collected a bag of currency notes along with the co-accused Mohan @ Mohit. Subsequently, co-accused Varin