MADURAI: The Madurai Bench of the Madras High Court quashed a chargesheet, filed by the Tiruchy airport police against a Canadian citizen for producing forget documents while attempting to depart from the airport in 2007, as the police has failed to produce any prima facie material to prove that the document is forged.
Justice K Murali Shankar was hearing a petition filed by a Canadian citizen, Zakaria Farah, seeking to quash the final report filed by the airport police before Judicial Magistrate VI in Tiruchy.
The prosecution said Farah carried a forged travel document issued by commissioner of police and foreigners registration officer of Hyderabad and attempted to board a flight to Sri Lanka.
The petitioner said he was not able to visit his home country for 16 years due to the pendency of the FIR, which affected his personal and professional life. The delay prejudiced his right to a fair trial due to the deterioration of evidence and potential loss of witnesses, and moreover, the police have not recovered the forged travel document.
The judge stated that the police have enclosed eight documents, including forged residential permit documents but the documents were not produced along with the chargesheet. They got a reply from the commissioner of police through fax on the incident day that it was forged. "The police registered a case and an FIR was registered only based on the fax," the judge said.
The judge further noted that the FIR was registered in October 2007, but the chargesheet was filed in April 2023, after 16 years. The prosecution had also not offered any acceptable explanation for the inordinate delay. The court felt that permitting the prosecution to continue would be an abuse of the court process.