Ahmedabad sessions court denies pre-arrest bail to court clerk

AHMEDABAD: A city sessions court on Wednesday denied pre-arrest bail to an employee of the Mirzapur rural court, who has been booked for allegedly tampering with court documents to get a civil suit dismissed.

Additional sessions judge K S Patel refused legal protection against possible arrest to Viresh Vinodiya, the court clerk, who along with four others have been charged of conspiracy, tampering with court documents and forgery. An FIR was registered with Shahpur police earlier this month on Gujarat high court’s order.

The court accepted public prosecutor Sudhir Brahmbhatt’s contention that the investigation is in nascent stage and the accused could influence the probe. It said that Vinodiya’s plea was “required to be rejected in the larger interest of the society so that common man may not lose faith in judicial system”.

Vinodiya argued that he has not assisted anybody to create a separate set of Rojkam, but it was a sheer mistake caused due to “heavy workload”.

Last year, the creation of court records in Mirzapur court led to dismissal of a land dispute. A widow, Punjiben Shakraji had filed a suit in 2008 seeking to restrain some persons from dispossessing her from a property in Gandhinagar district, which was the subject of a dispute following signing of a sale deed in 2005.

In 2017, Punjiben filed an application for submission of land related documents and demanded an inquiry. But as Punjiben died during the pendency of this case, her power-of-attorney holder, Harjivan Patel filed an application to become her legal heir and to take up the court proceeding further. On May 9, 2017, when the hearing in this case was scheduled, petitioner’s advocate found that the case had been dismissed by the court on April 19, 2017 because the petitioner did not appear.

It took the HC order for Shahpur police to register an FIR in this case.