Parveen Bhatnagar v. State Of Haryana

In the High Court for the States of Punjab and Haryana At Chandigarh Date of Decision:-29.7.2021 Parveen Bhatnagar ... Petitioner

Versus

State of Haryana ... Respondent \

CORAM:

HON'BLE MR. JUSTICE GURVINDER SINGH GILL Present:- Mr. Ram Kumar Saini, Advocate for the petitioner. Ms. Sheenu Sura, DAG, Haryana, assisted by SI Suresh Pal.

Mr. J.K. Sehrawat, Advocate, for the complainant. (proceedings conducted through video conferencing) ***** GURVINDER SINGH GILL, J.(Oral) 1.

The petitioner has approached this Court seeking grant of regular bail in respect of a case registered vide FIR No.606 dated 4.12.2019 at Police Station HTM, Hisar, District Hisar under Sections 420, 406, 467, 468, 471 and 506 of Indian Penal Code.

2.

The FIR was lodged at the instance of Raj Kumar Pannu wherein it is alleged that he and other members of his family are having accounts in the Income Tax & Central Government SETC Society Limited whose Director is Parveen

( 2 ) Bhatnagar (petitioner), who is presently posted as Inspector in Income Tax Department at Bhiwani. The complainant has given details of various deposits made by him or by other members of his family as well as the maturity amount and the total amount works out to `47,80,200/-. The complainant alleged that on 24.6.2019 when he asked Parveen Bhatnagar for disbursement of the maturity amount, he put him off and even subsequently he used to linger on the matter on one pretext or the other. The complainant thus alleged that the accused had defrauded him of huge amount. 3.

Learned counsel for the petitioner has submitted that the petitioner is merely posted as a Secretary in the Society and that infact the deposits have been made by the complainant on different dates w.e.f. the year 2010 onwards. It has been submitted that although the investors had been paid the interest regularly but the instant FIR came to be lodged when subsequently there was some delay in payment of interest. Learned counsel has further submitted that, in any case, since the petitioner has been behind bars for a substantial period of 1 year and 4 months and since trial is not making any headway, the petitioner deserves to be granted concession of regular bail. 4.

Opposing the petition, learned State counsel assisted by learned counsel for the complainant has submitted that since the petitioner happens to be involved in as many as 13 other cases, no case for grant of bail is made out. It has further been submitted that since a colossal amount is involved in the instant case and the entire amount has been siphoned off, the petitioner certainly does not deserve to be released on bail. 5.

I have considered rival submissions addressed before this Court.

( 3 ) 6.

Having regard to the fact that the petitioner has been behind bars for a substantial period of 1 year and 4 months and that trial is yet to commence inasmuch as not even a single PW out of the cited 10 PWs has been examined so far, further detention of the petitioner will not serve any useful purpose. The petition, as such, is accepted and the petitioner is ordered to be released on regular bail on his furnishing bail bonds/surety bonds to the satisfaction of learned trial Court/Chief Judicial Magistrate/Duty Magistrate concerned.

29.7.2021 ( Gurvinder Singh Gill ) pankaj Judge Whether speaking /reasoned Yes / No Whether Reportable Yes / No