Chandigarh couple gets 2-year jail term for fraud

CHANDIGARH: A local court has sentenced a couple to two-year jail term for cheating people, directing them to pay Rs 36 lakh to four victims.
Subhash Chaudhary, a resident of Sector 45, had in October 2014 filed a complaint that two cheques issued by the accused in exchange of his investment in a finance scheme in 2014 had bounced.
The complaint alleged Tejinder Singh, one of the accused, told Chaudhary, a tour and travel business operator, about a fixed deposit scheme. Tejinder told him that one Jagdish Singh (another accused), was their group leader. Tejinder and his wife Rinku took Chaudhary to Jagdish’s house in Sector 32.
Jagdish, Tejinder and Suraj Mohan Sharma, another accused, told the complainant that as they were in need of money to finance a project, they were floating the scheme for a select few. They told Chaudhary that one can deposit Rs 2 lakh or Rs 2.70 lakh with them by the end of November 2014 and on maturity one would get Rs 3 lakh and Rs 4 lakh by November 2016.
Chaudhary agreed to buy the two schemes of Rs 2.70 lakh each and handed Rs 5.40 lakh to Ravi Bajwa, another accused, who asked Tejinder to hand over the two post-dated cheques to Chaudhary. When Chaudhary presented the cheques for encashment in November 2016, they were dishonoured by the bank with the remarks of “exceeds arrangement”.
Chaudhary said his relative Surinder had invested Rs 2.70 lakh and nephew Rajbir and sister-in-law Rajni Rs 2 lakh each. All were handed over cheques worth Rs 7 lakh and they too were dishonoured.
Jagdish had claimed he was falsely implicated.
In his defence, Tejinder had claimed he lives in the same building as that of Chaudhary and had borrowed some amount from Chaudhary on a few occasions and had handed over some blank signed cheques from his and his wife Rinku’s account to Chaudhary. The cheques were handed over to him for procuring loan from bank as Chaudhary had assured him of arranging loan but later Chaudhary and his relatives filed false complaint against him and his wife, Tejinder alleged.
The court directed Tejinder to pay a compensation of Rs 16 lakh to Chaudhary and Rs 8 lakh to Surinder. In the other two cases, the court directed Rinku to pay compensation of Rs 6 lakh each to Rajni and Rajbir.