IN THE HIGH COURT OF PUNJAB AND HARYANA AT CHANDIGARH Date of decision: 23.04.2026 MANDEEP ......Petitioner VERSUS STATE OF HARYANA .......Respondent CORAM : HON'BLE MR. JUSTICE VINOD S. BHARDWAJ *****

Present: - Mr. Sunil Saharan, Advocate and Ms. Riya Kangra, Advocate for the petitioner.

Ms. Chhavi Sharma, Asstt. A.G. Haryana.

*****

VINOD S. BHARDWAJ, J. (Oral)

The present first petition has been filed under Section 482 of the BNSS, 2023, for the grant of pre-arrest bail to the petitioner in case bearing FIR No. 274 dated 06.06.2025, registered under Sections 318(4) and 61 of the BNS, 2023, at Police Station Hisar City, District Hisar.

2. The FIR in the present case has been registered on the statement of one Monika, wife of Sandeep Bansal, which reads thus:-

“I Monika, wife of Sandeep Bansal, am a resident of House No. 786, Neem Wala Mohalla, Gandhi Chowk, Hisar. On 01.06.2025, I saw an ad on Facebook, which I clicked on. Upon clicking, I was added to a Telegram group, whose user ID I no longer remember. On 02.06.2025, using the same ID, I was added to another group with the user ID @Mavelynlucky. In this group, I was asked to rate a hotel for five stars, and told that simply rating it would earn me a good profit. Initially, they had me complete tasks 1-6 for free. Then, they asked me to invest money in the 7th task. Mavelyn connected me with Ankit Rathod as a teacher on Telegram, and Ankit added me to a group called 5-National Stock Exchange group. In the 7th task, Ankit told me that if I invested Rs.1000/-, I would get Rs.1300/-, including profit, for which I agreed to invest Rs.1000/-. Then Ankit said that Mavelyn would provide me with the account number in which I was to send the money, for which I had to message them. Mavelyn sent me account No.080221011133501, IFSC CODE UNBA0000802 of Unity Small Finance Bank. Being convinced by his words, I transferred Rs.1000/- from my SBI Bank ACC. NO. 34601209612 to the account sent by him in the said account of Unity Small Finance Bank. After this, they gave me ORDER-2 in which they asked me to invest Rs.2000/- and said that if I invested Rs.2000/-, I would get Rs.3900/-, including profit. I fell for their words and transferred Rs.2000/- to the above-mentioned account of Unity Small Finance Bank from my SBI BANK ACC. NO. 34601209612 to the account sent by them, due to which I received Rs.3900/-, including profit in my SBI BANK ACC. NO. 34601209612. After this, they made me perform 3 more tasks in which I was asked to give only 5- star rating, and the salary for the same was told to be Rs.900/-. Then they sent Rs.900/- as salary to my above-mentioned SBI Bank account no. 34601209612. Now I was asked to give a rating in the next task 1112, in which I gave a rating. Now in Task 13, he again asked me to invest Rs.1000/- and said that for Rs. 1000/-, I would get Rs.1300/-including profit. Then Ankit told me to ask Mavelyn for the account to send Rs.1000/-, to which I was to send Rs.1000/-. As an investment for Task 13, I deposited Rs.1000/- in the above-mentioned account of Unity Small Finance Bank sent by Mavelyn from my SBI ACC. NO. 34601209612. After this, he said that now I had to invest Rs.6000/- in order no. 2 of task 13, and I deposited Rs.6000/- in the above-mentioned account of Unity small finance bank. After this, he asked me to invest Rs.20000/- in order no. 3 of task 13, for which he sent me UCO Bank's account no. 24320110155110, and I sent Rs.20000/- to the account sent by him from my SBI bank account. After investing in this way, Ankit said that I had made some mistake while investing the money, due to which my investment account had been frozen, for which I would have to invest Rs.40000/- more to unfreeze that investment account. I got convinced by his words and agreed to invest Rs.40000/-, on which Mavelyn provided me with Canara Bank account No.1088108068255, to which I sent Rs.40000/- from my above-mentioned account of SBI bank. Then Ankit told me that that day’s time was