Two let off in case of cheating US Embassy official for visa

NEW DELHI: A court here has acquitted two persons in a decade-old case of cheating and forgery for allegedly obtaining an American visa after the complainant failed to appear before it to prove the charge.
   
"As the complainant is not available, no purpose would be served by keeping the matter pending. The allegations of cheating could only be established by the complainant," Metropolitan Magistrate Sanjay Bansal said in a recent order.

The court absolved Rajendra Mehta and K P Ojha, who were charged with fraudulently inducing complainant Robert Brand, an official with the US Embassy, for securing the visa.

Brand, in his complaint in June, 1997, had said that Mehta posed as an Indian Air Force officer while applying for the visa and had enclosed a forged no-objection Certificateand a pay-roll history with the application.

Getting suspicious over Mehta's conduct, Brand had verified his antecedents and found that he was refused visa twice earlier, the complaint alleged.
   
Brand confronted Mehta with these facts when he appeared for the interview and finding truth in the allegations, had called police, which nabbed him and subsequently his associate Ojha, a travel agent.
   
The prosecution had relied on the testimony of the US official but it was found by the court during the trial that he had left the country and in his absence, there was no other substantial evidence to prove inducement by the accused.
   
While exonerating the duo, it further noted that the handwriting expert's report had also spoken otherwise and the prosecution had failed to furnish any other evidence to corroborate its claims.