208 IN THE HIGH COURT OF PUNJAB & HARYANA AT CHANDIGARH Date of Decision: 07.03.2025 BALVIR SINGH ...PETITIONER Versus STATE OF PUNJAB ...RESPONDENT CORAM: HON'BLE MR. JUSTICE HARPREET SINGH BRAR Present: Mr. R.S. Dhaliwal, Advocate for the petitioner.

Mr. Sandeep Kumar, DAG Punjab ***

Harpreet Singh Brar, J. (Oral)

1. The present petition has been filed under Section 483 of Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita, 2023 seeking grant of regular bail to the petitioner in case bearing FIR No. 322 dated 17.08.2019 under Sections 420 and 34 of Indian Penal Code (for short “IPC”) registered at Police Station City Barnala, District Barnala (Annexure P-1).

2. FIR(supra) was registered on the application moved by complainant Gurmeet Singh against Gurbachan Singh owner of Hollistic Consultant, Chandigarh and Balvir Singh (petitioner herein) on the allegations of collecting crores of rupees by giving forged joining letters. It is mentioned in the application that one organization namely SSUSKAA has formed website www.ssuska.co and they have given an advertisement that a survey of pregnant ladies is to be done under Jan Janani Yojna Surakhiya Scheme and as per scheme of the Government they have to be given free medicines from time to time to perform this work. The block co-ordinator are to be employed and each employee will get the salary of Rs. 18,500/- per month. Then in-charge of the organization Gurcharan Singh (co-accused) called them at his office and told them that salary of District Co-ordinator is Rs. 30,000/- and Block Co-ordinator is Rs. 18,500/- and for providing the employment, both the accused persons took an amount of Rs. 13,90,000/- as a bribe. Then 12 workers including the present complainant were appointed in District Barnala. But no salary was provided to them and when they raised the demand for the payment of salaries then Gurcharan Singh gave a cheque bearing no. 135621 of State Bank of India, Medical Institute, PGI, Sector-12, Chandigarh but no amount was found in the said account. It was further alleged that both accused Gurcharan Singh and present petitioner have cheated them by making advertisement on the website. During the inquiry it was found that Gurmeet Singh-complainant become acquainted with the petitioner and Gurcharan Singh and Balvir Singh had committed cheating with the complainant and his colleagues by taking them in confidence and alluring them to provide job and had also issued the fake joining letters to them. Gurmeet Singh gave Rs. 1,40,000/- to present petitioner, Kulwinder Singh gave Rs. 2 lakh to Gurcharan Singh and Rs. 1,50,000/- was also received by Gurcharan Singh at Court Chowk, Barnala from Kulwinder Singh. On the basis of this application, the present FIR(s) was registered against the above said accused persons were arrested.

3. Learned counsel for the petitioner inter alia contends that the similarly situated co-accused namely Gurcharan Singh has been granted the concession of regular bail by the Co-ordinate Bench of this Court vide order dated 16.05.2024 passed in CRM-M-13743-2024 (Annexure P-3) and all the offences in the FIR(supra) are triable by Magistrate and the investigation of the case is complete. The allegations against the present petitioner are that petitioner along with co-accused Gurcharan Singh duped the complainant to the tune of Rs. 7,45,000/- and the petitioner received some amount in his SBI bank account for providing employment to the complainant. The case of the petitioner is at par with the co-accused Gurcharan Singh, who has already been granted the concession of regular bail by the Co-ordinate Bench of this Court. As such, on the ground of parity, the petitioner is also entitled to grant of regular bail.

Petitioner has suffered incarceration for more than 05 months.

4. Learned State counsel files the custody certificate and status report dated 06.03.2025, which are taken on record and per contra opposes the prayer made by learned counsel for the petitioner on the ground tha