Bengaluru: Lawyer, gang helped criminals walk free with false bonds, cheated courts
Bengaluru: A fake surety racket that provided bail to criminals and cheated the judicial system was busted by the Central Crime Branch police on Tuesday.
Police arrested nine people including an advocate in this connection as the preliminary probe revealed that the gang had provided fake surety in over 500 cases.
Senior police officers took serious note when their suspicions were aroused after an increasing number of accused who got bail, failed to appear before the court for further hearings even as the number of people who provided surety for them as per the bail condition remained untraceable, and their numbers too kept increasing,. An investigation was launched into this and CCB was directed to probe it.
In November last year, a city court directed the police to enquire the genuineness of the surety documents provided in connection with a bail granted to an accused in the murder case of C N Srinivas, husband of Devasandra BBMP ward corporator Manjula Devi. When the police conducted an enquiry, it was found that a man named D. Narasimhalu Naidu, a resident of Krishnamurthy Layout in Jayanagar, had provided the accused surety. But when the police went to his house as part of the enquiry, it came to light that Naidu had passed away several years ago.
When the case was further investigated, police found that these miscreants had created fake documents in the name of Naidu by using land ownership documents. Following this, the CCB police register a case in Halasur Gate police station. The police teams also gathered information about a person, who was approached by many advocates seeking fake surety. When the police searched his number in a caller identification application, the name was shown as ‘Surety Naidu’, and suspected him to be the man misusing the credentials of the dead man, Narasimhalu Naidu.
Based on these clues, the accused, Harinath Reddy, 27, a resident of Agrahara Layout in Yelahanka was arrested, as were the eight other accused. Reddy hails from Chittor district in Andhra Pradesh. During questioning, Reddy revealed that he had been creating all manner of fake documents.
“A few years ago, he had met advocates who were involved in creating fake documents to provide surety to accused persons who could not arrange surety. Reddy revealed that advocates were charging Rs. 70-80,000 from accused for bail. He was getting a decent cut for arranging fake surety and was paying around Rs. 2,500 to the touts, who appeared in the court to fulfill formalities related to bail conditions. He himself had given surety in 155 cases,” an official said.
The other eight arrested persons are H. S. Kumar, 28, of Mysuru, G. Venkatesh, 51, of Nagarabavi, Anjana Reddy, 41, of Ananthpur, Srinivas, 45, of Kengeri Satellite Town, Shivaraj, 38, of Kengeri, D. Kumar, 22, of Mandya, Sudharani alias Shobharani, 26, of Yalahanka, and N. P. Prasanna Kumar, 47, of Kumaraswamy Layout.
Among the accused, Prasanna Kumar is the advocate who was helping accused persons get bail using fake sureties, while Sudharani is the paramour of main accused Reddy. She has deserted her husband and was living with him. She has also given fake surety in 35 cases in the name of Suguna. She was granted bail by the court as she has to look after her son, while advocate Kumar also got bail as his father is ill, the official added.
