Delhi Court acquits Sonu Punjaban of MCOCA charges

The court observed that police failed to produce any concrete evidence against the accused that substantiates the allegation of her running an organised sex racket.

The Delhi Police had charged Punjaban with two specific allegations “in the nature of organised crime” and, therefore, had charged her under MCOCA.

“The existing procedural laws and judicial system has become rather inadequate to curb or control the menace of her (Punjaban’s) illegal activities in society. Therefore, there is a need to curb her criminal activities in order to maintain peace by using the law as a deterrent. The involvements, as mentioned above, brings the activities of this syndicate within the scope and object for which MCOCA was enacted,” the FIR stated.

In April 2011, Delhi Police had nabbed Punjaban after they received a tip-off that she and her associates had been spotted pimping women.

Police deployed two officers, who posed as customers and laid the trap. The officers then struck a deal with the tout, Raju Sharma, and Punjaban for two girls.

Police then arrested Punjaban, her four associates and four other men during a raid in Mehrauli.

Police had earlier arrested Punjaban twice, from Preet Vihar and Saket, before she was charged with MCOCA in 2011.

In 2007, she was arrested under sections of the Immoral Traffic Prevention Act. While she got bail in the 2007 case, she was arrested for the same offence in 2008.

When she was arrested in April 2011 as part of the Mehrauli raid, she had already been booked for the same offence twice — which is one of the preconditions for invoking MCOCA.

Punjaban is also allegedly involved in a murder case in Haryana’s Jhajjhar district, police said.