New Delhi: Pointing to glaring holes in the prosecution case, a court has discharged a Kerala-based nurse from a decade-old cheating and passport forgery case linked to her deportation from Brus-sels in 2015. The court held that the prosecution failed to prove that she had cheated the Indian immigration authorities, as alleged by Foreig-ners Regional Registration Office (FRRO).Noting that there was “no sufficient ground” to proceed against the accused, additional sessions judge Pranav Joshi discharged Leena Ma-ria Soosai from offences under various IPC provisions, including cheating and forgery, as well as for allegedly “holding forged passport” under Passport Act.The multiple lapses in the investigation flagged by the court included “lack of proper chain of custody”, “absence of original documents” and “concealment on the part of the prosecution”. The case appeared to have been built solely on unverified allegations raised by the Belgian immigration authorities, the judge said.In Dec 2015, Soosai had travelled from New Delhi to Brussels and was deported the next day after the Belgian authorities had allegedly detected tampering in her passport. The defence, led by advocate Manoj Taneja, submitted that while her original passport was retained, no FIR was registered at the time and she was allowed to return to Kerala.An FIR was registered on-ly eight months later in 2016, at the instance of FRRO, at the IGI Airport police station. Soosai was granted anticipatory bail the same year and the chargesheet was filed on July 12, 2022.Despite allegations of cheating, the court noted that the Indian authorities had flagged “nothing suspicious” at her departure from New Delhi and that the case was initiated only after her deportation. Since the alleged offence was detected abroad, the prosecution was also required to establish that the offence was committed in India under Section 188 of CrPC, but the investigation was noted to be “completely silent on this aspect”. The court noted that the Belgian authorities could not be examined due to immunity under Vienna Convention.The court also pointed to the absence of any record indicating when the passport was sent by the Belgian authorit-ies or received by FRRO. It also noted that one letter showed the accused’s name had been “inserted manually” while the rest of the contents were typed, and that the original document was never produced before the court. The judge observed that a “special report” referred to in FRRO correspondence was never placed on record.
