IQBAL AHMED Vs. C.B.I. SCB

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The accused, convicted and sentenced for the offences under Sec. 419, 420, 468 and 471 of IPC, and sec. 12(1)(b) of the Passports Act, 1967, is the petitioner here.

(2.) That on 22/1/2009, the Inspector of Sampigehal M Police Station received information that some persons were involved in creation of forged and fabricated passports for the purpose of human trafficking and that they would be approaching the employees of the IBM Company, Manyata Tech Park, Bengaluru, for preparing documents in the name of fictitious names. The Inspector secured two panchas, formed a team consisting of police constables, head constables and Assistant Sub-Inspector and went to that place around 4.00 p.m. As they kept watch, they saw five persons alighting from a red colour Maruti Zen car. A person sitting next to the driver got down from the car and told three other persons in Hindi language to go inside the office of IBM and enquire about the persons who were in need of passports and visas. The police team entertained suspicion, surrounded the car and all those persons and subjected them to search. They could recover a passport bearing number G2999124 from a person called Syed Iqbal. That passport showed that it had been used multiple times for visiting countries viz., Malaysia, Singapore, Canada, China, America, etc. The police team also recovered some other items such as letter heads of various offices, application for issuing tourist visas, blank applications for obtaining visa etc. Seizing all the items, the inspector drew up a mahazar, arrested and brought them to Police Station. Then he gave first information report to the SHO as per Ex.P.1 and took up investigation.

(3.) I have heard the arguments of Sri. Hashmath Pasha, learned senior counsel for the petitioner and Sri. P.Prasanna Kumar, learned counsel for the respondent. The elaborate submissions made by learned counsel will be referred to later, but Sri Hashmath Pasha mainly raised the following points for being answered :