Court lets off four in 15-year-old fake currency case

A Delhi court has acquitted four persons in a 15-year-old fake currency case saying there was not enough evidence to prove their involvement in the crime.
Additional Sessions Judge Virender Kumar Goyal acquitted Delhi residents Hemant Kumar, Rattan Garera and Dharmender Sharma and Uttar Pradesh native Ashok Malik of several charges under IPC including section 489 D (possessing instruments for forging or counterfeiting currency-notes or bank-notes), read with section 120B (criminal conspiracy).
"From the statement of Rajan Verma (complainant), it seems to be a sudden incident and police apprehended accused Hemant, whereas according to rukka (documents)...They (police) were
already having information about accused Hemant, received from Bombay Police on July 1, 1999...And a team was formed in this respect which was conducting surveillance of accused Hemant.

"It is not proved in any manner as to how the accused persons were interconnected with each other or whether they were known to each other previously and there is no evidence brought on record regarding the accused persons entering into a criminal conspiracy," the court said.
It also said that the case was registered on statement of Verma and he could not be examined by the prosecution before the court, adding that the date of recovery was also doubtful.

"Complainant Rajan Verma could not be produced to prove the complaint. So, the facts deposed by the police witnesses taken place near Sunder Lal Jain Hospital (where Hemant was apprehended) are not proved in any manner. The registration number of TSR (which Verma was driving) is not investigated," the court said.

According to prosecution, on July 1, 1999, an information was received from Bombay Police that Hemant Kumar was involved in the business of fake currency notes and since then, his activities were kept under surveillance.
On July 4, 1999, Hemant was arrested on the complaint of Rajan Verma whom he had cheated and an FIR was registered against him for cheating and other offences related to use of fake currency under provisions of IPC.
Later at Hemant's instance, Ashok Kumar Malik and Dharmender Sharma were arrested while they were indulged in preparing fake currency notes.
Fake currency notes with face value of Rs 2,21,000 and other materials for preparing fake notes, including the machines to print such notes, were recovered from them. Later, another accused Rattan Garera was also apprehended.