HC flags cop's attempt to produce ‘imposter' as complainant
The company had approached the court challenging a notice received on June 30, from the Maharashtra cyber police, 'restraining the company from making objectionable or controversial statements'. A reference was made in the notice to a complaint received on June 12, against the TV serial Tum Se Tum Tak. However, when the petitioner tried to approach the purported complainant, Sunil Mahendra Sharma, they were informed by the security guard that no such person resided at the address.
Following this, the court on July 8 directed the police officer concerned to produce the complainant before the bench, along with his Aadhar card, voter identity card, and proof of his permanent address. On the same day, the police inspector conveyed to the court that Sharma had been traced to a different address, which was not mentioned in the complaint dated June 12, and produced him before the court.
When the complainant's identity documents were submitted, the court found several inconsistencies and noticed that they belonged to a certain Mahendra Sanjay Sharma, and not the complainant – Sunil Mahendra Sharma. To further verify his identity, the court directed him to affix his signature to a sheet of paper, to compare it with those on the documents. To the surprise of the court, the signatures did not match.
An additional public prosecutor informed the court that Mahendra had approached the police officer and claimed he was the complainant, after which, he was brought to the court.
The division bench of Justice Ravindra Ghuge and Justice Gautam Ankhad, however, recorded the disturbing conduct of the police officer, observing that any attempt to hoodwink the court and produce an imposter before it, with the object to snatch an order based on misinformation or wrong information, cannot be countenanced.
'Even if the man claims to be the complainant, it clearly is a blatant lie considering the various documents on record. This case becomes more serious because this man tried to initially sign as Sunil Sharma,' the court observed.
The court further highlighted that giving false evidence in any manner is to be dealt with legally, and directed the police officer to file an affidavit to provide his explanation. 'Any person who intentionally makes a false statement in a legal proceeding knowing or believes it to be false, is an offence,' the court clarified and posted the matter for further hearing to July 28.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Time of India
an hour ago
- Time of India
HC takes suo motu cognizance of 10,000 open manholes across city
Nagpur: The Nagpur bench of the Bombay High Court on Wednesday took suo motu cognizance of a disturbing media report highlighting over 10,000 open or broken manholes across the city, directing the filing of a public interest litigation within two weeks. Tired of too many ads? go ad free now The bench, comprising Justices Anil Kilor and Vrushali Joshi, expressed concern over the civic body's failure to act despite the serious threat to public safety, particularly during the monsoon. "Such widespread neglect by the municipal authorities cannot be ignored. It directly endangers human lives," the court observed, appointing Shilpa Giratkar as amicus curiae to draft and submit the PIL. The trigger was a July 30 report that detailed how thousands of sewer and drainage chamber lids across roads and footpaths are either missing or damaged. Many are submerged under stagnant rainwater, making them invisible and turning regular commutes into high-risk journeys for pedestrians, motorists, and animals. The issue cropped up during the hearing of a petition by a woman, Asha Bhagat, filed through Giratkar, whose son died after falling into an uncovered well between Automotive Square and Kamptee Road. The bench directed to club this case along with the suo motu PIL on manhole safety. As per the report, despite sanctioning Rs15 crore — Rs1.5 crore per zone across 10 city zones — for installing 10,000 new covers, the Nagpur Municipal Corporation has not initiated a single repair. The tender process was completed in April, but no actual work followed. Most of the older cast-iron lids were reportedly stolen for scrap. Even temporary cement covers were stripped of embedded metal rods. While the NMC proposed switching to SFRC (Steel Fibre Reinforced Concrete) covers, the plan never left the paper stage. Tired of too many ads? go ad free now "Tenders were floated and police complaints were filed, yet the chambers remain open," the report noted. The absence of covers has also led to a spike in accident cases, with both people and animals falling into open manholes. The condition is especially dangerous on flooded roads and submerged footpaths. Several internal city roads routinely turn into mini-lakes during the monsoon, worsening the hazard, the report mentioned.
New Indian Express
5 hours ago
- New Indian Express
SC quashes FIR against Telugu actor Mohan Babu and his son in 2019 student protest case
In a major relief to Telugu actor-producer Mohan Babu and his son Vishnu Manchu, the Supreme Court on Thursday quashed a criminal case registered against them in a 2019 student protest in Tirupati over fee reimbursement. 'A reading of the FIR (First Information Report) and the charge-sheet neither discloses any act committed or illegal commission that caused common injury, danger, annoyance to the public or any section of the public or interference with their public rights, nor do they disclose any voluntary obstruction to a person that prevents them from proceeding in any direction that they have a right to proceed in," said the two-judge bench of the top court, headed by Justice BV Nagarathna and including Justice KV Viswanathan, in their verdict. The SC quashed the FIR against the father-son duo after finding that the offences invoked against the accused were not made out in the case. "The appellants (Babu and Vishnu) were exercising their right to freedom of speech and expression and to assemble peacefully," the court said. As per the prosecution case, ahead of the Lok Sabha and Assembly elections in Andhra Pradesh in 2019, Babu and his son along with others had held a rally along the Tirupati-Madanapalli road and raised slogans against the state government for not granting student fee reimbursements. They were booked on a complaint made by the person in charge of the Model Code of Conduct Team-IV, Chandragiri assembly constituency. In January this year, the Andhra Pradesh High Court refused to quash the proceedings in the case, forcing the father-son duo to knock the doors of the top court seeking relief in the case.
Indian Express
6 hours ago
- Indian Express
Malegaon blast verdict: Ex-judge calls acquittal ‘death of justice', AIMIM state chief says state should appeal against verdict in SC
Former Bombay High Court judge B G Kolse-Pati expressed 'shock' at the NIA court judgement in the Malegaon bomb case, while describing it as 'death of justice' and 'a blow to India's democracy and secularism'. Minutes after the verdict was pronounced, Kolse-Patil told The Indian Express, 'I found it extremely difficult to believe that six people died in the Malegaon bomb blast, 100 were injured, and no one has been found guilty in the last 17 years. If no one is guilty, did the blast take place on its own? The ownership of the motorcycle which was used for the blast was proved. There were four meetings between the accused before the blasts. One meeting was held in Bhopal, two in Indore and one in Ujjain. They had recorded the meetings. When they were asked by ATS as to why the meetings were recorded, they said it was done to ensure that no one who attended it betrays them.' The retired judge said that the Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS), then led by Hemant Karkare, had investigated the case thoroughly and After Karkare's death, the chargesheet was filed. He said the The chargesheet was self-explanatory as it stated that there were several audio clips of the meetings held by the accused. He said it could transcribe only a few and therefore the ATS submitted the laptop of the accused to the court along with the chargesheet. In the charge-sheet, the ATS said 'it was a big conspiracy to topple the central government, deny the existence of the Indian Constitution and bring in Manusmriti'. 'It was also mentioned in the chargesheet that the accused had tried to take the help of Israel and Nepal,' Kolse-Patil added. He said if proper evidence was been placed before the court, then the judge cannot be blamed. 'But if adequate evidence has been produced by the prosecution and still the accused have been acquitted, then I will call it death of justice and a blow to India's democracy and secularism,' he said. Retired Maharashtra Inspector General of Police S M Mushrif said, 'I… was not shocked because of what is happening under the current regime. Actually, it was a clear-cut case in which the accused should have been held guilty. In my 35-year police career, I had never seen the kind of scientific evidence that was produced in this case. It was a water-tight case.' Mushrif said he had read the chargesheet which was submitted by the ATS just a couple of months after the death of Karkare. 'In the chargesheet, it is mentioned that for the blast conspiracy, four meetings were held between the accused. 'In the chargesheet it was stated that the first meeting was held in April 2008 in which Pragya Thakur and Lt Col Purohit were present. In this meeting, it had been decided that Malegaon was dominated by Muslims and therefore they should trigger the blast there. In the second meeting held in Indore in June 2008, Thakur had come to the meeting with two people and described them as experts. Both of them are absconding till date. In the third meeting in July 2008, Thakur had complained that even after she had given two people to them, Purohit was not giving them RDX. The fourth meeting was held in Ujjain. Purohit had come with one of his associates. Purohit said RDX should be given… The two who are absconding were then given the RDX. The recordings of this meeting was tested in the forensic laboratory. In this case, the CDR of the call exchanges between the accused was also seized which also provided concrete proof.' AIMIM Maharashtra president Imtiaz Jaleel said, 'Six people died in the bomb blast. Even if one person had died, he should have got justice. But in the Malegaon blast case, justice has not been done. All seven accused have been acquitted. What message have we sent to those who are involved in terror activities and those want to divide our people? Five judges changed in the case, chargesheet of thousands of pages was filed and then supplementary chargesheet was filed, scores of witnesses were brought in… The court should tell us whether fake evidence was placed before it and who are the people responsible for this.' Jaleel said the Malegaon NIA court verdict has raised doubts about the judicial system. 'All political parties need to ponder over the verdict seriously. A two day Parliament session should be convened to discuss and debate about our judicial system.' Jaleel said the state government should appeal against the verdict in the Supreme Court. 'Actually, the Supreme Court should review this judgement… The state government should appeal in the SC. I don't think the state government will not appeal in the court. If the state government does not appeal, then it will raise a question as to why it appealed against the verdict in the Mumbai train blast case.' Activist Niranjan Takle said besides the seven accused, there were two others who have been declared absconders in the case and have not been found so far. 'After the blast, I checked the registers of two hotels in which the name of the two absconders are mentioned. They stayed in Malegaon for one and a half days. They arrived just a day before the blast and left soon after. They still remain untraced.' Manoj More has been working with the Indian Express since 1992. For the first 16 years, he worked on the desk, edited stories, made pages, wrote special stories and handled The Indian Express edition. In 31 years of his career, he has regularly written stories on a range of topics, primarily on civic issues like state of roads, choked drains, garbage problems, inadequate transport facilities and the like. He has also written aggressively on local gondaism. He has primarily written civic stories from Pimpri-Chinchwad, Khadki, Maval and some parts of Pune. He has also covered stories from Kolhapur, Satara, Solapur, Sangli, Ahmednagar and Latur. He has had maximum impact stories from Pimpri-Chinchwad industrial city which he has covered extensively for the last three decades. Manoj More has written over 20,000 stories. 10,000 of which are byline stories. Most of the stories pertain to civic issues and political ones. The biggest achievement of his career is getting a nearly two kilometre road done on Pune-Mumbai highway in Khadki in 2006. He wrote stories on the state of roads since 1997. In 10 years, nearly 200 two-wheeler riders had died in accidents due to the pathetic state of the road. The local cantonment board could not get the road redone as it lacked funds. The then PMC commissioner Pravin Pardeshi took the initiative, went out of his way and made the Khadki road by spending Rs 23 crore from JNNURM Funds. In the next 10 years after the road was made by the PMC, less than 10 citizens had died, effectively saving more than 100 lives. Manoj More's campaign against tree cutting on Pune-Mumbai highway in 1999 and Pune-Nashik highway in 2004 saved 2000 trees. During Covid, over 50 doctors were asked to pay Rs 30 lakh each for getting a job with PCMC. The PCMC administration alerted Manoj More who did a story on the subject, asking then corporators how much money they story worked as doctors got the job without paying a single paisa. Manoj More has also covered the "Latur drought" situation in 2015 when a "Latur water train" created quite a buzz in Maharashtra. He also covered the Malin tragedy where over 150 villagers had died. Manoj More is on Facebook with 4.9k followers (Manoj More), on twitter manojmore91982 ... Read More
