Delhi court discharges woman in 2016 passport tampering case, slams prosecution for 'concealment'

The court also said that the prosecution cited a letter dated July 13, 2016, issued by FRRO, which mentioned a special report enclosed with the passport and deportee papers.

Slamming the prosecution for ''concealment'' and flagging various loopholes, a Delhi court discharged a woman accused of cheating Indian immigration authorities by tampering with her passport. Additional Chief Judicial Magistrate Pranav Joshi was presiding over the case against the accused, Leena Maria Sossai, for whom an FIR was registered by the IGI Airport police in 2016. The charges included cheating, forgery, using a forged document as genuine, and violations under the Passports Act. Advocate Manoj Taneja represented the accused in the proceedings. The prosecution alleged that Sossai was deported from Brussels by Belgian immigration authorities in December 2015 for allegedly inserting pages into her passport and using counterfeit immigration stamps. An investigation subsequently confirmed that she had tampered with her passport and provided false immigration details. In an order dated January 29, the court noted that the date on which the passport was sent by Belgian immigration to the Foreigners Regional Registration Office (FRRO) in Delhi was not mentioned, nor did the communication from the Belgian federal police specify the passport number or the accused's name. ''Furthermore, the letter (by Belgian immigration) shows that the same was sent on December 16, 2015, and it also mentions a reference to previous communication, but the details of the communication are not available. To whom the communication was sent is unknown,'' the court said. The court pointed out that a typed letter from the Jet Airbase to the FRRO indicated that Sossai's name had been inserted manually. The court also said that the prosecution cited a letter dated July 13, 2016, issued by FRRO, which mentioned a ''special report'' enclosed with the passport and deportee papers. ''However, the special report was not produced before the court, and the contents of the communication dated July 13, 2016, were concealed from the court. Even the complete deportation papers are not produced, and only one letter issued by the (Belgian) federal police is placed on record,'' the court noted. The court further said the circumstances raised doubt on the ''purity of the chain of custody'' of the accused's passport, and, besides, the prosecution failed to explain the delay in registration of FIR after the accused arrived at the IGI airport, after being deported, on December 18, 2015. It said, ''The selective production of the documents by the prosecution, concealing the communications and documents'¦ would make the prosecution liable for adverse inference to be withdrawn against it, and it can be presumed that had the prosecution disclosed all the communications and documents, it would have gone against its case.'' The court underlined that the prosecution did not explain ''how the deception was caused to Indian Immigration and how Indian Immigration was cheated.'' ''As per the Vienna Convention (on diplomatic relations), the Belgium immigration would be immune from deposing before the court and therefore, the circumstances in which the accused was deported and the allegations made by Belgium immigration authority could never be proved,'' the court said. It said that the offence was committed outside the territory of India, but the requisite sanction for prosecuting her under the Code of Criminal Procedure was not obtained. The court said that the investigation failed to establish whether any offence or its conspiracy was committed in India. Discharging the accused, it said, ''Considering the lack of proper chain of custody, lack of original documents, concealment on the part of the prosecution and absence of sanction, there is no sufficient ground to proceed against the accused.''

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