Haryana marketing scam case | Supreme Court protects actor Alok Nath from arrest

New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Tuesday protected Bollywood actor Alok Nath from arrest in connection with a fraud case related to an alleged shady marketing scheme in Haryana.

A bench of Justices B V Nagarathna and R Mahadevan ordered that no coercive steps should be taken against Nath till the next date of hearing in the case.

The court issued notice to the Haryana government and others on the actor's plea, seeking their replies on Nath's plea.

His counsel submitted that his client was seeking consolidation of multiple FIRs. All this happened 10 years back case.

"In the same case, another actor, Shreyas Talpade, also an accused, got relief from this court. We want the same for the present petitioner also," the counsel submitted.

The case related to a complaint filed by 37-year-old Sonipat resident Vipul Antil, against 13 people, including actors and brand ambassadors Shreyas Talpade and Alok Nath.

He claimed that both the actors promoted the Human Welfare Credit Cooperative Society Ltd, as brand ambassadors.

In his complaint, he alleged that the society committed a "serious crime of cheating the public through financial schemes".

The society was formed under the Multi-State Cooperative Societies Act and it started functioning in many states including Haryana from 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," Antil in his complaint stated.

He further stated that 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, but later on delayed the payment by making the excuse of system upgradation.

The complainant contended the investors could not get their hard-earned money. When the investors and agents approached the society officials, but they were given false assurances.