Court rejects pre-arrest bail plea of man booked for making fabricated passports

The court rejected the pre-arrest bail plea of Rajesh Panchal, who the police claimed was preparing and providing the forged passports and visas.

The police had in February arrested one Rohan Dudwadkar from the Mumbai international airport and claimed that his interrogation had led them to Panchal.

The police claimed that Dudwadkar had told them that Panchal was charging Rs 30-50 lakh from each person for sending them to other countries and around 80 passengers were sent to foreign countries with the help of bogus documents.

“…effective interrogation of the applicant (Panchal) is of tremendous advantage in disinterring many useful information and also materials which would have been concealed. Success in such interrogation would elude if the applicant knows that he is well protected and insulated by a anticipatory bail order during the time he is interrogated. Generally, interrogation in such a condition would reduce to a mere formality,” additional sessions judge Prashant C Kale said in the order passed on August 12.

Panchal had filed the plea stating that he was falsely implicated and that two others arrested in the case were granted bail.

The police filed a chargesheet against six persons in May. Panchal’s earlier pre-arrest bail plea was rejected in May and since then he had appeared before the investigators twice .

The police said that he had not co-operated with the investigation then and sought to reject his plea for custodial interrogation.