IN THE HIGH COURT OF PUNJAB & HARYANA AT CHANDIGARH Date of decision: 22^nd December, 2025 Siddharth Chauhan ...Petitioner Versus Serious Fraud Investigation Officer (SFIO)

...Respondent CORAM: HON'BLE MRS. JUSTICE MANISHA BATRA Present: Mr. Prateek Gupta, Advocate and Mr. Vikram Sheoran, Advocate for the petitioner.

Ms. Puneeta Sethi, Senior Panel counsel and Mr. Y.S. Thakur, Advocate for the respondent-SFIO.

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MANISHA BATRA, J (ORAL):-

CRM-51613-2025 This application has been filed by the applicant for placing on record the judgment dated 09.04.2025 passed by Hon’ble Supreme Court as Annexure P-23.

For the reasons mentioned in the application, the same is allowed, subject to all just exceptions. Annexure P-23 is ordered to be taken on record.

Main case The instant petition has been filed under Section 528 of BNSS seeking quashing of the order dated 22.07.2025 passed by the learned Special Court under the Companies Act, Gurugram, in Criminal Complaint No. 05 of

2019 titled as Serious Fraud Investigation office vs. Adarsh Build Estate Ltd.

and others, whereby the petitioner had been declared a proclaimed person.

2. The aforementioned complaint has arisen out of order dated 20.06.2018 passed by the Central Government through Ministry of Corporate Affairs (hereinafter referred to as ‘MCA’) whereby MCA in exercise of the powers conferred under Section 212(1)(c) of the Companies Act, 2013 (For short, ‘Companies Act’) and Section 43(2)and (3)(c)(i) of the Limited Liability Partnership Act, 2008 (for short, ‘LLP Act’), ordered investigation into the affairs of Adarsh Group of Companies and its 125 Limited Liability Partnership Companies (hereinafter referred to as ‘companies under investigation’ ‘CUIs’) by Serious Fraud Investigation Office (for short ‘SFIO’) on the allegations of siphoning off funds of Adarsh Credit Cooperative Society Limited (for short, ‘ACCSL’). As per the investigation conducted, funds of the ACCSL, which actually belonged to 22 lakhs depositors and were of amount of several crores of rupees, were received by the CUIs on unsubstantiated and questionable projected balance sheets and financial statements. Both CUIs as well as the ACCSL, were controlled by Mukesh Modi, who was the founder of ACCSL, and who along with his family members and associates, was found involved. In the complaint submitted by the complainant, the petitioner was arraigned as accused No. 135, and his eight companies were arraigned as accused Nos. 71 to 78. This complaint has to be considered as a report presented under Section 173 of the Cr.P.C. in terms of the provisions of Section 212(15) of the Companies Act.

3. After issuance of process by the Court of learned Special Judge, the petitioner moved an application for grant of pre-arrest bail which was dismissed vide order dated 01.08.2019 by learned Special Judge. He filed an application for pre-arrest bail before this Court which was dismissed vide order dated 13.11.2019. Even a special leave petition challenging the order dated 13.11.2019, as filed by the petitioner was dismissed as withdrawn before Hon’ble Apex Court on 16.09.2022. In the meanwhile, proceedings under Section 82 of Cr.P.C. were initiated by the learned Special Judge, since the petitioner had not appeared before it despite the fact that even non-bailable warrants were issued against him for 11 times and he was fully aware of the proceedings. On 25.03.2022, order was passed by the special judge for issuance of proclamation against the petitioner for 02.07.2022. The proclamation so issued on 07.05.2022 had been received back duly published. However, the petitioner filed a petition bearing CRM-M-27904-2022 before this Court and vide order dated 01.07.2022, the matter was ordered to be listed with CRM-M-20279-2020 filed by the petitioner wherein vide order dated 24.05.2022, the trial Court was directed to adjourn the proclamation proceedings beyond the date fixed by this Court. The aforementioned petition was ultimately dismissed as wi