High Court denies bail to man who duped textile baron of Rs 7 crore

The High Court has denied a pre-arrest bail to a man, who along with his accomplices, had allegedly duped Vardhman group chairman Paul Oswal of Rs 7 crore after making him attend a fake online hearing.

One of the accused posed as the then Chief Justice of India, DY Chandrachud.

The plea for anticipatory bail had come up for a hearing before the Punjab and Haryana High Court on February 3 and the order rejecting it was made available on Friday.

The incident had taken place on August 27 last year, when accused Atanu Choudhary and his accomplice called the textile baron posing as Enforcement Directorate officers and claimed that Oswal’s name had appeared in a money laundering case.

They also shared fake investigation and Supreme Court documents with him, making Oswal believe the veracity of the claim.

Later, in a fake virtual hearing in which the accused posed as Chandrachud, the textile baron was asked to deposit Rs 7 crore into a bank account.

Hearing the bail plea, Justice Mahabir Singh Sindhu’s Bench was told that the petitioner “orchestrated a sophisticated cybercrime scheme involving the creation and dissemination of forged documents purportedly issued by the Supreme Court of India, Enforcement Directorate, and the CBI”.

Referring to increasing trend of cybercrime in India, Justice Sindhu cited a data of the Reserve Bank of India that revealed an accumulated loss of Rs 3,207 crore in 5.82 lakh cases from 2020-24.

Denying anticipatory bail, Justice Sindhu asserted, “It clearly reveals that the petitioner, along with other co-accused, defrauded the complainant to the tune of Rs 7 crore and also forged an order of Supreme Court. Apart from that, a fake arrest order purported to have been issued by the ED was also shown to the de-facto complainant and coerced him to transfer the alleged amount.”