IN THE HIGH COURT OF PUNJAB AND HARYANA AT CHANDIGARH Chailesh Sharma ....Petitioner V/s State of Haryana ....Respondent Date of decision: 15.01.2026 Date of Uploading : 15.01.2026 CORAM: HON’BLE MR. JUSTICE SUMEET GOEL Present: Mr. Manoj Tanwar, Advocate for the petitioner.

Mr. Gurmeet Singh, AAG Haryana.

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SUMEET GOEL, J. (Oral)

1. Present second petition has been filed under Section 483 of the Bharatiya Nagrik Suraksha Sanhita seeking grant of regular bail to the petitioner in case bearing FIR No.339 dated 27.12.2023, registered for the offences punishable under Sections 409, 420 & 120-B of IPC at Police Station Udyog Vihar, District Gurugram.

2. The petitioner had earlier applied for grant of regular bail before this Court which was dismissed as withdrawn on 11.08.2025. The relevant part of said order reads as under:-

“3. Learned counsels for the petitioner(s), after arguing for sometime, seek to withdraw the petition(s) in hand, at this stage..

4. Ordered accordingly.”

3. The gravamen of the FIR in question is that the complainant, Amit Kumar Singh, Authorised Signatory of One97 Communications Limited (hereinafter referred to as ‘OCL’), lodged a complaint alleging large-scale financial fraud committed by present and former employees/agents of Radical Minds Technologies Private Limited (RMTPL) in connivance with other beneficiaries. It has been alleged that OCL, a leading fintech company operating the Paytm platform, had entered into a Master Services Agreement with RMTPL for providing call centre and customer support services. However, certain employees/agents of RMTPL were granted controlled access to OCL’s Seller Panel for the limited purpose of processing legitimate refunds. According to the prosecution, the said access was dishonestly misused by the accused persons, who in criminal conspiracy processed unauthorised and fraudulent refunds, including partial refunds and diverted the funds to accounts of known and unknown beneficiaries, thereby causing wrongful loss of approximately ₹

8.06 crores to OCL. In total, 2305 fraudulent refund transactions were allegedly carried out during the period from 18.05.2023 to 09.06.2023.

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During investigation, it was found that amounts of 8,69,667/-, 18,14,423/-

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and 78,00,000/- were credited into the accounts of accused Lokesh Kumar, Manish Kumar and Chailesh Sharma (petitioner herein) respectively, which were further transferred to other accounts. Based on these set of allegations, the instant FIR was registered and investigation ensued. The petitioner, along with other co-accused, was arrested on 28.04.2025. After completion of investigation, the final report/challan has been presented before the competent Court.

4. Learned counsel for the petitioner has iterated that the petitioner has been falsely implicated into the FIR in question and has no direct role in the alleged offence. Learned counsel has further iterated that the petitioner is neither an employee nor an agent of Radical Minds Technologies Private Ltd and has no access to the internal system or Seller Panel of the complainant company. According to learned counsel, the petitioner never processed any refund transaction and had no knowledge of the alleged fraudulent activities. Learned counsel has further submitted that the petitioner is not the mastermind of the alleged fraud and no overt act has been attributed to him except the alleged receipt of certain amounts in his bank account. Learned counsel has argued that mere receipt of money without any material showing conscious knowledge or criminal intent is not sufficient to attract the ingredients of the offences alleged. Learned counsel has further submitted that the investigation has been completed, the challan has already been presented before the competent Court of jurisdiction and no further recovery is to be effected from the petitioner. Furthermore, the entire evidence in the present case is documentary in nature and is already in custody of the investigating agency,