The Supreme Court on Tuesday protected actor Alok Nath from arrest in a fraud case related to an alleged shady marketing scheme in Haryana.
A bench of Justices B V Nagarathna and R Mahadevan issued notice to Haryana Police and others on the actor's plea.
While issuing notices, the bench said, "In the meanwhile no coercive steps to be taken against the petitioner by the respondents till the next date of hearing." The top court had earlier granted protection from arrest to actor Shreyas Talpade in the case.
Thirteen people, including actors and brand ambassadors Shreyas Talpade and Alok Nath, were booked on the complaint of 37-year-old Sonipat resident Vipul Antil.
Antil alleged both the actors "promoted the Human Welfare Credit Cooperative Society Ltd, as brand ambassadors".
ACP Murthal Ajeet Singh had said the complaint was against a multi-marketing company facing a probe.
On the two actors, the ACP said they were allegedly its brand ambassadors and victims were lured to invest due to such personalities.
"They were named in the complaint. An FIR has been registered. Now, it will be investigated what was their role," he said.
The FIR was registered on January 22 under Sections 316 (2), 318 (2) and 318 (4) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023, for various offences, including criminal breach of trust and cheating, on Antil's complaint.
He alleged that the society committed a "serious crime of cheating the public through financial schemes".
According to the complaint, the society was formed under the Multi-State Cooperative Societies Act, and it started functioning in many states, including Haryana, from September 16, 2016.
"Its main functions were to provide savings schemes like fixed deposit and recurring deposit. It presented itself as a trustworthy and safe financial institution and carried out massive publicity to attract and convince investors. The model was based on multi-level marketing, which rapidly increased the number of investors," it stated.
Promising better returns, the society assured investors that their money would be safe and the maturity amount would be paid on time and claimed they did so initially for a few years, the complaint alleged.
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It further alleged that in 2023, the payment of maturity amount to the investors started getting disrupted, and the "officials of the society kept trying to justify the delay by making the excuse of system upgradation".
Antil claimed that when investors and agents approached the society officials, they were given false assurances.
"Gradually, the owners of the society ended all contact, and the investors did not get their hard-earned money back..," he added.
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