IN THE HIGH COURT OF PUNJAB & HARYANA AT CHANDIGARH Date of decision: 25^th February, 2025 Amir ...Petitioner Versus State of Punjab ...Respondent CORAM: HON'BLE MRS. JUSTICE MANISHA BATRA Present: Mr. Parunjeet 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 present petition has been filed under Section 483 of the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita, 2023 (for short ‘BNSS’) by the petitioner seeking grant of regular bail 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. 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 temple and other religious activities, which would stop otherwise, 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 nephew 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.

4. 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 the petitioner- Amir and co-accused 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. The present petitioner 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.

5. Subsequently, co-accused Varinder Singh and Ashu Saini were also nominated as such. On 09.02.2024, supplementary statement of the complainant was recorded on the basis of which, accused Kamlesh was nominated as such. He was arrested on 12.03.2024 and on interrogation, the accused Kamlesh suffered a disclosure statement to the effect that he along with the co-accused Ashok Kumar Purohit, Raj