Woman lawyer arrested for fabricating court, police records

A city-based woman lawyer has been arrested on charges of fabricating court and police records for securing the release of two arrested accused in a forgery case, police said today.
Thane Police had earlier booked six persons including the lawyer Rekha Potnis (45) in connection with the fabrication case before arresting all of them.
The alleged accused including the lawyer had been booked under sections 420 (cheating), 465 (forgery), 467 (forgery of valuable security), 468 (forgery for purpose of cheating), 471 (using as genuine a forged 1[document) rw 34 of IPC.
According to police, the lawyer was involved in the racket of fabricating legal papers and getting arrested accused released on bail from a magistrate court here.

Potnis facilitated the release of two accused -- Mohammad Shaikh (47) from Mira Road and Bashir Mulla (62) from Latur, who were arrested by Srinagar Police here for cheating and forgery in May last year.
A local magistrate in his order had directed the Srinagar police station to verify the guarantor's identity paper. But Potnis got this order from court and instead of giving it to the police station gave it to an agent, Umesh Kamdi, who forged the document and secured the release of the duo.

Kamdi and Shaikh are now under arrest in this fresh case and the investigation is underway.

The racket came to light when a constable attached to the court was updating and verifying the records and found that the accused have been released on bail (in the forgery case) even when the police station had not verified the credentials of the guarantors, police said.
The court constable found that all the docments pertaining to their release were fabricated including the letter from the police station, signature of the police officer, stamps, and also outward number of the police station.
The accused also presented a fake policeman in the court for the submission of the purported verification report of the police station, Police PRO Sukhada Narkar said.

Thane Police are now probing if the gang had indulged in similar rackets earlier, the officer said.