Court denies bail to man who cheated ‘hapless citizens’

New Delhi: The act of cheating hapless citizens when they were already suffering under the wrath of the pandemic is grossly atrocious, inhumane and obnoxious, a Delhi court has stated while dismissing the bail plea of a man. The man was arrested for allegedly duping people on the pretext of providing them with Covid-19 medicines such as actemra and remdesivir. The order passed by additional sessions judge Dharmender Rana further highlighted that the accused, Sameer Khan, was reported to be the “kingpin” of a crime syndicate involved in cheating hapless citizens, who were “frantically looking for medicines during the present pandemic scare”.“The applicant/accused is alleged to be controlling the bank account where the cheated amount was received from the duped victims. Recovery of the debit card of the account along with the link of the mobile number of the applicant/accused with the said account number goes a long way against plea of false implications,” the order stated. Khan’s counsel Vaibhav Kumar contended that the allegation of the police did not have the constituents of cheating and neither was there dishonesty nor any fraudulent intention. He also argued that the prerequisites for commission of the offence of cheating were absent as no money was received in his client's account besides he wasn't even aware of any such transaction.He also stressed that Khan's name did not even feature in the FIR. Bail was also sought on the grounds of the poor health of Khan's parents, who were dependent on him. Additional public prosecutor Irfan Ahmed pointed out that a message/link for sale of Covid-19 medicines Actemra of Roche and Remdesivir of Cipla was doing the rounds on social media but when a preliminary enquiry was carried out, a “large-scale cheating and fraud” was found to be the motive behind it. The accused persons, he said, were accepting money in a bank account at Danapur, Bihar and the account holder was found to be Kishan Kumar and the contact number for the related transaction belonged to Khan. Therefore, it was the prosecutor's contention that the applicant had control over the bank transactions of the fraudulent sales. Approximately Rs 3.8 lakh was reportedly found in the bank account in question following transfers from various accounts, the investigation showed. The police had acted on complaints received on the cybercrime portal, and arrested a co-accused Vijay Benedict, who termed Khan to be the kingpin of the conspiracy. The court considered the nature of the offence and the seriousness of allegations, finding Khan's bail plea "bereft of any merits" while dismissing it.