SANJEEV GOVINDASWAMY Vs. STATE OF ODISHA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) Both these applications seeking pre-arrest bail arise out of the same case and involve identical facts for which both were heard together and are being disposed of by this common judgment.

(2.) The petitioners are apprehending their arrest in connection with EOW Bhubaneswar P.S. Case No. 19 of 2023 corresponding to C.T. Case No. 5 of 2023 pending in the Court of learned Special Judge, OPID Court, Cuttack for the alleged commission of offence under Ss. 419/420/467/468/471/120-B of IPC read with Ss. 66(C)/66(D) of IT Act and Sec. 6 of OPID Act, 2011.

(3.) The prosecution case is that one Sasmita Sahoo being the Inspector of Police, EOW CID-CB, Bhubaneswar lodged a written complaint before the Khordha EOW, Bhubaneswar on 13/6/2023 stating therein that in course of investigation into an allegation of online financial fraud in relation to a website called www.smsmvip.com, she found that several companies were involved in cheating and misappropriating public money by inducing customers to invest in their companies with assurance of higher returns. One Bijay Kumar Nath of Puri had submitted a written report on 25/4/2023 that being thus lured, he had invested some money in the aforementioned website and initially got some return but subsequently he suspected that some fraud had been committed. On further investigation, huge amounts of money were found to have been transacted by several companies through gaming apps on mobile phones. It was thus found that the creator of the website and developer of the application and the Directors, proprietors of the companies/firms named in the complaint, had committed serious financial fraud. The present petitioners have not been named in the FIR. Their apprehension of being arrested stems from the fact that in course of investigation, one S. Chitravel, an employee of Byrontec Solutions Pvt. Ltd. was arrested. He was a colleague of petitioner-Sanjeev Govindaswamy. Moreover, the bank accounts of Sanjeev Govindaswamy held in IDFC Bank and IDBI Bank were frozen. The other petitioner- Sathy Govindaswamy apprehends arrest as he was a Director of Byrontec Solutions Pvt. Ltd.