MANOJ KUMAR Vs. STATE OF HIMACHAL PRADESH

JUDGEMENT

(1.) Since all these petitions arise out of FIR No. 120/2023 dtd. 24/9/2023, they have been heard together and are being disposed of by this common order.

(2.) By way of instant petitions, filed under Sec. 438 of the Criminal Procedure Code, the petitioners, in the event of their arrest, are seeking bail in case FIR No. 120/2023, dtd. 24/9/2023, registered at Police Station Palampur, District Kangra, H.P., under Ss. 420, 120-B of the Indian Penal Code (hereinafter referred to as 'IPC'), read with Sec. 5 of the Himachal Pradesh Protection of Interests of Depositors (In Financial Establishments) Act, 1999 and Ss. 21 and 23 of the Banning of Unregulated Deposit Schemes Act, 2019.

(3.) The prosecution story, as per the status report, in brief, is that on 24/9/2023, a complaint was received at Police Station Palampur, District Kangra, H.P. against accused Subhash Sharma, Hemraj, Sukhdev Thakur, Abhishek Sharma and Milan Garg, wherein, it was stated that many persons had invested their money through website www.voscrow.io on the advice of the above named accused persons. The owners of the website were accused Subhash Sharma and Milan Garg. In exchange for the investment, the virtual currency was given to the persons on the website. However, accused Subhash Sharma, promoter Sukhdev Thakur and Abhishek Sharma had cheated the general public through websites Voscrow and Hypenext, as in the year 2019-2020, the above named persons kept on promising to double the person's invested money, which continued till the year 2021. During this period, some persons received return on the funds invested by them and many persons followed and made investments in the scheme, but after 25/12/2021, allocation of fund/return was stopped by accused Subhash Sharma. Subsequently, he assured the persons that they would start the distribution of return soon and announced a tie up with the Hypenext Company, which was owned by accused Milan Garg. Thereafter, he started asking persons to invest in Hypenext and many persons trusted his words and invested again. During that period, some people got return on their investments, which continued till the year 2022. However, later on, accused Subhash Sharma informed that the company could not make the returns due to some technical problems and asked for some time to start the payment again. The accused persons again acknowledged the pending refund of 18 Crores and assured to activate ID's on Aglobal.IO by 8/8/2023. However, till date the persons did not receive any return on their investment in the scheme. As per the complainant, the accused persons in connivance with one another and by developing fake websites and by showing fake coins, have embezzled huge amount. After the registration of FIR the investigation commenced and during the course of investigation, petitioners filed the instant petition seeking prearrest bail and this Court vide orders passed on different dates, granted interim bail to the petitioners.