GURNAM SINGH Vs. STATE OF PUNJAB

JUDGEMENT

(1.) Prayer in this petition is for grant of anticipatory bail in FIR No.295 dtd. 13/9/2018 under Ss. 420/465/467/468/471/120-B of Indian Penal Code, 1860, registered at Police Station Jodhewal, District Ludhiana.

(2.) Brief facts of the case are that on receiving a complaint from Additional Superintending Engineer/Operation/Janta Nagar(Spl) Division PSPCL, Ludhiana. The FIR was registered regarding a fraud committed in the PSPCL account by wrongly creating the amount of 25 consumers, who had furnished their affidavits. It is further stated in the FIR that on receiving a complaint an inquiry was committed by In charge Economic Offence Wing, Ludhiana, and in the inquiry it was found that petitioner Gurnam Singh was posted through SARCO Company in PSPCL Division, Janta Nagar, Ludhiana from July 2015 to August 2016 for imparting training to the employees for depositing the electricity bill online. Later, he was removed by the Department as he committed irregularities and during the period of his posting, the petitioner by showing proximity with the consumers, as detailed in the FIR had obtained cash amount for depositing in their consumer account and later on, by making wrong entries through his relative Rajwinder Singh, internet computer operator in the office of Sunder Nagar Division, Ludhiana, has committed a fraud. It is further stated in the FIR that the petitioner along with his co-accused has even obtained cheques from some of the consumers and instead of depositing the same in their account, by interpolating the entries like the amount of Rs.1444.00 was changed to Rs.9444.00 and was credited to the account of some other consumer. It is further stated that similarly some other cheques of the consumers which were with co-accused Vivek Jain, were also misused by the petitioner and other co-accused by showing fake transactions and thus have committed a huge fraud to the PSPCL as well as the consumers from whom the petitioner had taken the amount in cash as well as in cheque. The FIR further stated that the petitioner Gurnam Singh is the first cousin of co- accused Rajwinder Singh who was already an employee of PSPCL and using his expertise in computers, he has committed the fraud by entering the amount against the name of the consumers and then reversed the entries and thus the amount actually taken from the consumer was misused and misutilized. The FIR which is based on an inquiry, has given the details of each and every individual consumer.

(3.) Learned counsel for the petitioner has argued that the petitioner was only a contractual employee whose services were procured through a private agency for imparting training to the employees and he was not in charge of the account Sec. where the fraud was committed. Counsel for the petitioner has further submitted that all the affidavits of the consumers are of the same date and after this petitioner was removed from PSPCL, he has been named in this FIR in order to save the skin of the senior officials as he was never posted on the seat of the cashier or in the accounts branch. Counsel further submits that the petitioner had no authority to receive the cash from the consumers and had even no assess to the password and the ID of the official in charge who used to perform the duty of cashier/head cashier.