Delhi Rouse Avenue Court today acquitted former Congress lawmaker Jagdish Tytler and businessman Abhishek Verma in a cheating and forgery case stemming from a 2009 forged letter that was used for assuring visa extension to Chinese telecom officials.
Judge Kaveri Baweja of Rouse Avenue court acquitted the Congress lawmaker and the businessman. In this Chinese Visa Scam case, the accused persons had forged a letter on the letterhead of then Union Minister Ajay Maken in 2012.
The aforementioned forged letter was addressed to then Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in an attempt to create an impression that visa rules for Chinese officials were in the process of being relaxed.
The rules were necessitated owing to the guidelines issued by India’s Ministry of Home Affairs (Foreigner Division) in 2009 regarding extension of visas to foreign nationals. Likewise, all foreign nationals who were in India on business visas were asked to leave the country on the expiry of their existing visas or by October 2009.
Reportedly, the Chinese telecom company officials approached Abhishek Verma in order to circumvent this government directive. It was alleged that the forged letter was used by businessman Abhishek Verma and Congress lawmaker Jagdish Tyler to convince the Chinese telecom officials that the visa situation was being sorted out with the Central government. Furthermore, it was alleged that the forged letter was also used to obtain illegal gratification from the Chinese officials.
Ajay Maken lodged a complaint regarding the forgery. Consecutively, the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) filed a case to investigate the same. Later, the Delhi court framed charges under Sections 420 (cheating), 471 (fraudulently or dishonestly using as genuine any forged document or electronic record) and 120B (criminal conspiracy) of the Indian Penal Code and also under the provisions of the Prevention of Corruption Act.
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