Crl.M.No.M-16840 of 2009 -1- IN THE HIGH COURT OF PUNJAB AND HARYANA AT CHANDIGARH Crl.M.No.M-16840 of 2009 Date of Decision: 30.7.2009 Narinder Kumar Gupta ....Petitioner. Vs. State of Punjab ..Respondent. CORAM: HON'BLE MR.JUSTICE RAKESH KUMAR JAIN Present : Mr.N.S.Dadwal, Advocate for the petitioner. Mr.Ranbir Singh Rawat, AAG Punjab. Mr.L.S.Sidhu, Advocate for the complainant. RAKESH KUMAR JAIN, J. The petitioner has applied for anticipatory bail in case registered vide FIR No.95 dated 6.5.2009 under Sections 420/409/467/468/471 IPC at Police Station Division No.5, Ludhiana. The FIR has been registered at the instance of Rajinder Singh Pathania, General Manager of Transcorp International Limited in which he has alleged that the Company is doing business of money changing having its Branch office at 238, Opposite ESI Hospital, Bharat Nagar Chowk, Ludhiana which was looked after by the petitioner as Branch Manager. It is further alleged that the petitioner had cheated Company for a sum of Rs.26.37 lacs by sale of Company's Travellers Cheques. He was supposed to send the said cheques to the Corporate Office at New Delhi but instead of sending the same, he used the said amount of Rs.26.37 lacs for his personal Crl.M.No.M-16840 of 2009 -2- use which was detailed in the FIR. It is alleged that in the account books of Ludhiana Branch, cheques of the aforesaid amount were shown to have been transferred but actually no amount was transferred to the Corporate account. Before coming to this Court, the petitioner had applied for anticipatory bail before the Court below which was dismissed vide order dated 15.6.2009. Learned counsel for the petitioner has argued that the petitioner has been falsely implicated. According to him, travel agent Atul Sharma was dealing with Complainant Company for exchanging the currency of different countries. He induced the Company that his clients who have to travel abroad, need currency of different countries and on this pretext he had taken the currency of the different countries through the complainant's company. It was also submitted that even the petitioner had moved application to the police for registration of case against Atul Sharma. On the other hand, learned counsel for the State has argued that the petitioner is trying to shift his burden upon Atul Sharma whose whereabouts are not known. It is also submitted that there is a huge amount of Rs.26.37 lacs approximately involved in this case which has been converted by the petitioner for his personal use which is yet to be recovered, therefore, custodial interrogation of the petitioner is required. After hearing the learned counsel for the parties and keeping in view the facts and circumstances of the present case, I am of the view that as there are direct allegations against the petitioner of misappropriation of Rs.26.37 lacs approximately and the said Atul Sharma has also not been apprehended nor his whereabouts are known, the petitioner does not deserve Crl.M.No.M-16840 of 2009 -3- the concession of anticipatory bail. Hence the petition is hereby dismissed. It is, however, made clear that this order shall not be deemed to be an expression of this Court on the merits of the case. (RAKESH KUMAR JAIN) 30.7.2009 JUDGE Meenu