IN THE HIGH COURT OF PUNJAB AND HARYANA AT CHANDIGARH Date of decision : 09.02.2026 RAHUL CHOOKAR ... Petitioner Versus STATE OF HARYANA ...Respondent CORAM: HON'BLE MRS. JUSTICE MANISHA BATRA Present: Mr. Jasbir Singh Dadwal, Advocate for the petitioner Ms. Himani Arora, AAG, Haryana **** (cid:1)

MANISHA BATRA, J. (ORAL)

1. The instant petition has been filed by the petitioner under Section 482 of Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita, 2023 (for short “BNSS”) for grant of anticipatory bail in case arising out of FIR No.100 dated 21.08.2025 registered under Sections 319 and 61 of Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023 (for short “BNS”) and Sections 75, 66, 66-C and 66D of IT Act and Section 42(3) of Telecommunication Act, Police Station Cyber Crime, Panchkula.

2. The adumbrated facts as emanating from the record are that on the evening of 20th/21st August, 2025, a secret information was received at Police Station Cyber Crime, Panchkula that some fake call centers were being operated in Twin Tower of IT Park, Sector 22, Panchkula and the operators of those call centers had been cheating on the persons living abroad and were extracting money from them. Believing the secret information to be true, 03 raiding parties were formed. Search warrants were got issued. One of the raiding parties conducted raid at call centre named as Certys IT Services and found 28 boys and girls while conversating with foreign nationals with the help of Eyebeam and X- Lite Dialer apps and duping them of their money. They alongwith accused- Mahesh Chandra Shekhar Shetty, operator/owner of the call centre were apprehended and disclosed their names and particulars. Accused-Mahesh Chandra Shekhar Shetty disclosed that he had taken those premises on rent under the garb of providing customer services to foreign nationals and had been defrauding them with the help of different softwares. He had formed teams and some of them used to extract details by showing themselves as bank officials. He also disclosed that he was receiving the defrauded money by way of bitcoin or hawala transactions. Several laptops, earphones, mobile phones, chargers and cash amounting to Rs.8,20,000/- were recovered from the call centre and taken into custody by the Police. A special investigation team was constituted to investigate the case.

3. As per the further allegations, the accused-Mahesh Chandra Shekhar Shetty suffered further disclosure statements and in his second disclosure statement disclosed that he alongwith the co-accused Rahul Dogra and Stephen had been running an IT Company by hiring a premises in Panchkula. USA nationals were being cheated by them on the pretext of providing customer services of different companies namely Netflix, Amazon by using different Apps. A caller team engaged by them used to attend calls from abroad and after collecting the details of the callers, the bank team engaged by them used to call such persons by introducing themselves as banking officers and after obtaining their bank details such victims were trapped and were cheated by depriving of their money which was received through Hawala transactions and was distributed amongst themselves. The petitioner was nominated as accused. Apprehending his arrest, he moved an application for grant of anticipatory bail which has been dismissed by the Court of Ld.

Additional Sessions Judge, Panchkula vide order dated 14.11.2025.

3. It is argued by learned counsel for the petitioner that he has been falsely implicated in this case. He was not named in the FIR. Even the disclosure statement of the co-accused Mahesh Chandra Shetty disclosed the name of one Rahul Dogra though the name of the petitioner is Rahul Chookar. His named was subsequently added without there being any material on record. He was neither present at the spot at the time of alleged raid nor any documentary evidence has been collected by the prosecution to connect him with the subject crime. He was not the Director of the fake call centre as alleged and ha