Bageshwar: A court in Garur, Bageshwar, Uttarakhand, has sentenced a Ghaziabad-based couple and their Delhi-based associate to one year of rigorous imprisonment for cheating an Uttarakhand govt school teacher of Rs 36.26 lakh through fraudulent insurance policies and purported IPO investments.The court also imposed a fine of Rs 8,000 each on the convicts Surendra Prasad, his wife Ruby Sinha and Shashikant, with an additional six months of simple imprisonment stipulated if the fine remains unpaid.The case dates to 2016–2017, when Umed Ram Arya, a teacher at Junior High School Lakhni, began receiving calls from individuals posing as insurance agents offering a special scheme for govt employees promising 20% annual returns. Believing the offer, Arya purchased 12 policies from various companies, paying approximately Rs 7.38 lakh in premiums.Between 2018 and 2019, the accused claimed his money had been moved into initial public offerings (IPOs) with tax-free monthly returns. Under this pretext, they convinced him to transfer a total of Rs 36.26 lakh to accounts linked to them by demanding additional payments for taxes, GST and late fees.Although about Rs 20 lakh was temporarily transferred back to Arya’s account during the scheme, a stop-payment instruction was issued the very same day, locking him out of the funds.Realising he had been scammed, Arya approached the police, leading to an FIR being registered at Baijnath police station in 2020. Police traced the fraudulent transactions to accounts held by Surendra Prasad and Shashikant, and subsequently implicated Ruby Sinha after discovering a joint bank account operated by her and Prasad.During the trial, the prosecution presented 10 witnesses and 32 documentary exhibits under the guidance of assistant district govt counsel Gaurav Agrawal, ultimately leading the court to convict all three individuals based on the evidence.