The Delhi High Court recently granted regular bail to social media influencer Sandeepa Virk in a money laundering case in which she stands accussed of selling fake beauty products online and duping a woman of nearly ₹6 crore on the pretext of offering her a role in a film [Sandeepa Virk v Directorate of Enforcement].
Justice Swarana Kanta Sharma passed the order, noting that the case was initiated almost a decade after the alleged transactions.
Virk’s continued incarceration would be unjustified given the facts of the case and the prolonged delay in initiating proceedings under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA), the Court said.
“In view of the foregoing discussion, this Court is inclined to grant regular bail to the applicant on her furnishing a personal bond in the sum of ₹2,00,000/- with two sureties of the like amount,” the Court ordered.
The case stemmed from a first information report (FIR) registered in 2016 at a police station in Punjab under Sections 406 and 420 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC).
The complainant alleged that one Amit Gupta and others including Virk induced the complainant's family to invest around ₹6 crore on the promise of casting her as the lead actress in a film. Gupta was later declared a proclaimed offender in the predicate offence.
Further, the ED alleged that Virk misrepresented herself, duped people into paying money, and laundered proceeds through a fake e-commerce website, hyboocare.com, which claimed to sell FDA-approved beauty products.
She was arrested in August 2025.
After considering the case, the Court noted that Virk was neither charge-sheeted by the police in the predicate offence nor summoned by a magistrate when a private complaint was filed by the complainant. The Court also took into account that nearly ₹2.7 crore had already been returned to the complainant by the main accused.
Senior Advocate Anurag Ahluwalia with advocate Ashish Upadhyay appeared for Sandeepa Virk.
Panel Counsel Samrat Goswami with advocates Shrinivas Sinha and Vivek represented the ED.
[Read Order]