Court rejects plea to charge woman for posing as Cong leader

A court here has rejected Delhi Police's plea to frame charges against a woman who along with her husband and one other person was accused of approaching the US Embassy for visas by impersonating as Congress leaders.
The complaint was filed before the police by the personal secretary of Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi alleging that some persons had contacted the US Embassy by falsely claiming to be representatives of Congress party and its chief Sonia Gandhi for visas in December 2006.
The police approached the sessions court challenging the order of a magistrate who had discharged Sapna Arora and Rajiv Arora of the charge of cheating by impersonating.

The magistrate, however, had put on trial the third accused and Sapna's husband, Manoj Kumar Arora, for offence of cheating by impersonating.
The magistrate had discharged Sapna and Rajiv saying that there was no sufficient evidence to proceed against them.
The police challenged the trial court's order acquitting them on the grounds that recovery of mobile/SIM number attributed to Sapna was sufficient to raise suspicion against her that she had impersonated as Dalmia.

It said the magistrate had "failed to appreciate mere suspicion alone against the accused was sufficient to warrant framing of charge against her along with her husband Manoj".

Additional Sessions Judge Dharmesh Sharma upheld the trial court's order of discharging the two accused in the case and dismissed the police's plea saying there was no "infirmity and illegality" in the magistrate's order.
"Mere fact of seizure of the mobile phone/SIM no. From the respondent/accused (Sapna) does not lead to presumption that it was she who had called the US Embassy or impersonated herself as Archana Dalmia (Secretary of AICC).
"None of the prosecution witnesses have implicated her in any manner in the entire episode so much so that even Babu Saheb Raja Rao Wakchure (witness) in his statement under section 161 CrPC implicates only her husband for impersonation and deception," the court said.

It said there is nothing in the evidence of witnesses that at any point of time Sapna was accompanying her husband.