New Delhi:
A senior citizen has been sent to jail for five years by a Delhi court for cheating an Non-Resident Indian (NRI) by giving him a fabricated bank draft of a non-existing branch of a US bank.
Vijay Khanna, (65), was held guilty for forgery, using counterfeit currency, cheating and conspiracy in the 17-year-old case lodged by B S Chhabra which was probed by the CBI.
Besides the jail term, the court also imposed a fine of Rs 35,000 on Khanna, a resident of Gurgaon, and directed him to pay compensation of Rs 5 lakh to Chhabra.
"Due to forged and fabricated demand draft of $25,000 besides a loss of Rs five lakh, Rs 3.12 lakh were also obtained from Chhabra, which were never returned. Accordingly, compensation to the tune of Rs 5 lakh is also imposed upon the convict payable to Chhabra," Additional Sessions Judge Virender Kumar Goyal said.
Chhabra, who had filed a complaint with the crime branch of Delhi Police in April 1994, told the court that in October 1992, he had visited a NRI conference at a hotel here.
In the conference, he met N K Jain, who introduced himself as a NRI consultant and after some meeting, Jain proposed to him that they were setting up NRI consultancies and wanted him to get involve on 50 per cent share holding, Chhabra said.
The complainant said that Jain and his son asked him for a loan of Rs 5 lakh for business purposes and offered to give a note against the same after which he extended the loan in cash to Jain, who died during the pendency of the case.
The complainant said Jain introduced him to Khanna and in a meeting, he was handed over a draft of $25,000 by them after which Jain told him that draft had a value of over Rs 8 lakh at the exchange rate of that time and thus Chhabra handed over Rs 3.15 lakh to them.
The draft was later found to be forged and fabricated and when Chhabra contacted the accused they did not met him.
During the trial, Khanna claimed innocence saying a ACP of the Delhi police was putting pressure on him to help a business man which he refused and thus number of false cases were registered against him. The matter was, however, later on probed by the CBI which also registered an FIR in this regard.
The court held that the forged and fabricated draft of non-existing branch of Chemical Bank, Los Angeles, California in USA was handed over to Chhabra.
"A forged and fabricated draft of Chemical Bank, Los Angeles, California, which was not existing, was given to the complainant Chhabra in discharge of loan amount as per his statement...prosecution has also been able to prove beyond reasonable doubts that signatures appearing on the draft in question, were written by accused Vijay Khanna," it said.
The court refused the plea of Khanna's counsel seeking his release on probation on the ground of his old age and ailing condition, saying the offence committed was "grave in nature".
"Offences proved against the convict are grave in nature and are punishable up to the life imprisonment, hence, I am not of the view to release him on probation. Hence, request of the defence counsel is turned down," it said.