HC grants bail to Tamil Nadu resident in Rs 1.06 crore fraud against Army officer

Srinagar, Nov 26: The High Court of J&K and Ladakh Wednesday granted bail to a man from Tamil Nadu who allegedly duped an Army officer of over Rs 1 crore on “account of fake property deal” after allegedly hoodwinking him into believing that he was a “big businessman, financer, and co-producer of movie Bahubali and had access to Parliament and President’s House”.

35-year-old resident of Chennai, Nagraj V was booked by police in 2024 following a complaint by an army officer alleging that he had been duped of over Rs 1 crore on false promises related to property matters.

The investigation stemming from the complaint divulged that Nagraj was found involved in financial scams in the state of Tamil Nadu besides being an accused in grabbing rupees several crores from a film producer, music director and medical students in the name of medical seats and from others for clearing a project in which some of his family members were also involved.

A bench of Justice Sanjay Dhar allowed bail plea of Nagraj after hearing him through his counsel Areeb Kawoosa, Advocate Aatir Kawoosa and the government through its counsel.

The court noted that in the absence of any statutory bar to grant of bail in economic offence of the present nature, declining bail to Nagraj on the said ground would not be legally permissible.

To the contention that antecedents of the petitioner ( Najraj) are criminal in nature, as such, he does not deserve the concession of bail, the court said: “There is no doubt to the fact that the petitioner has been involved in a number of cases relating to cheating and even the Investigating Agency, during the course of investigation, has found that the petitioner is involved in as many as three FIRs registered in the State of Tamil Nadu”.

The question that arises for determination, it said, is as to whether registration of previous FIRs against the petitioner (Nagraj) would, by itself, become a ground for declining the concession of bail to him in a case where chargesheet has already been laid before the trial Magistrate and the petitioner has been in incarceration for last more than one and a half years.

“It is clear that mere pendency of multiple FIRs against an accused cannot by itself be a ground to deny bail in a case where the maximum punishment for the offence for which the accused is charged extends up to seven or ten years, particularly when the chargesheet stands produced against him and he has spent more than one and a half years in jail as an undertrial,” the court said while relying on Supreme Court’s decisions.

The Court held that denying bail to the petitioner in a case of present nature may not be a proper exercise of discretion vested with this Court under Section 483 of BNSS as the same would militate against the principle that “bail is the rule and jail is exception”.

With this conclusion, the court granted bail to Nagraj by imposing several conditions.

According to the Army officer, Nagraj came into contact with him in August 2023 and by posing himself as a big businessman, financer, and co-producer of the movie Bahubali, expressed his desire to invest in Kashmir.

He also asked the Army officer if he was interested in buying a house in Delhi and could get him the same at reasonable rates.

On September 8, 2023, Nagraj requested him to transfer Rs 12 lakh to his father’s account as he was going to the President’s house.

The Army officer transferred Rs 11 lakh from his account and Rs 1 lakh from his wife’s account.

On September 12, 2023, Nagraj called the Army officer to Delhi to discuss the property matter and the complainant went to his house in Defence Colony, New Delhi.

Nagraj showed the property papers of his house to him and claimed that he and his father were its owners, and they wanted to sell it.

As the Army officer was looking for a property, he agreed to buy it and asked him to prepare a written agreement.

Nagrai told the complainant that he would send the documents by post as those were in Chennai, but he never did so.

In October 2023, Nagraj called the Army officer to Chennai, where he showed an apartment where renovation work was going on and claimed it as his production house.

The Army officer on being asked by Nagraj deposited Rs 32 lakh in the account of K Vishnu Sagar, Nagraj’s father, Rs 30 lakh in the account of Ranjeet Surya Ganesan (Nagraj’s friend in Chennai) and Rs 44 lakh in his account.

The sum of Rs 1.06 crore was paid by the Army officer through his and his wife’s account.

When the suspicion was raised in the mind of the Army officer, he enquired and came to know that the property did not belong to Nagraj, and he had shown him false papers about the property.

When the Army officer asked him to return his money, he kept on delaying and finally issued cheques for Rs 1 crore and due to insufficient funds, the cheques bounced.