Tale of two passports: Nigerian national cleared of drug charge but convicted for illegal entry, stay in India
A special court in Mumbai sentenced a 34-year-old Nigerian national—arrested four years ago for staying in India without a valid passport and visa—to five years in jail. The man, who was initially arrested based on an alleged tip-off of drug possession, was acquitted of all charges under the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (NDPS) Act.
On October 8, 2021, Godwin Chukwu was arrested based on information that he was coming to Malad to sell cocaine. The Mumbai police claimed that Chukwu was caught with a plastic bag containing a 'white powder', found in the pocket of his pants, which they claimed was 151.5 grams of the banned drug.
While searching his house as part of the probe, the police found two passports of the Federal Republic of Nigeria with Indian visas stamped on them. The investigators wrote to the High Commission of Nigeria, through the Ministry of External Affairs, seeking to check the validity of the passports and the visa.
The High Commission responded stating that one of the passports was fake and one was with an expired validity. While the original passport expired in 2020, the fake one showed validity till 2023. The response also said that while one visa, which was a business visa with validity for three months issued in 2016, was real, the others were not issued by them. Based on this, the police also invoked the Foreigners Act against Chukwu, special public prosecutor S S Panjwani told the court.
During the trial, Chukwu's lawyer Khushal Parmar submitted that the search and seizure of the accused was not done properly, and provisions of the NDPS Act, like the sample and bulk of the seized substance, was not produced before the magistrate. The court agreed with the contention of the accused that the mandatory provisions under the Act were not followed.
It said that the 'casual approach' of the investigating team 'creates doubt about their activity of seizure and search'. While Chukwu also claimed that the fake passport was planted to falsely implicate him, the court said the onus was on him to show valid documents to prove his travel and stay in India was legal, which he had not done.
'The evidence on record clearly depicts that the accused is residing in India without a valid passport and visa. He was not having a valid visa and passport on the day of commission of offence,' special judge K G Joshi said in his order on May 28.
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