Forging signatures: Now, role of Chandigarh traffic police under scanner

A racket was discovered when a court found 59 release orders of impounded vehicles were issued with forged signatures of 6 judicial officers by misusing court’s stamp in Nov 2019

A UT Traffic Police official was questioned on Monday by enquiry officer, Sushil Kumar Garg, who is also the special judge CBI in the forgery case that surfaced recently, wherein signatures of six judicial officers of a district court were forged to release impounded vehicles. His statement was recorded by the enquiry officer.

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The role of Chandigarh Traffic Police officials in under the scanner after the major racket was unearthed. As many as 59 vehicles, impounded for drunken driving and non-availability of documents, were released within a period of 10 days in November 2019 on the basis of forged documents.

According to highly placed sources, in the meeting that lasted over 30 minutes, the official who is in-charge of impounded vehicles in Sector 29, was shown the forged release orders and asked as to “how, on the basis on forged orders, 59 impounded vehicles were released”, and as to “why the traffic police did not cross-check the orders with original ones from the court”.

A senior official, on the basis of anonymity, said that ideally, when a person takes the release order and fine slip to the traffic police for release of the impounded vehicle, the traffic police official checks it twice. “It is checked once from the NIC website where release orders are uploaded online, and later when they call the court staff and get the court record checked. It is after checking twice for authenticity that a vehicle is released,” said the official.

When asked about the process, SSP Traffic, Shashank Anand, refused to comment as the matter is still under investigation. However, he said, they were providing all information sough by the enquiry officer. “We are fully co-operating with the court and working to ensure that such a thing does not happen again,” Anand said.

THE RACKET
A major racket was unearthed in the court with the discovery that within 10 days in November 2019, 59 release orders of impounded vehicles were issued with forged signatures of six judicial officers by misusing the court’s stamp and other records.

Sources said the former chief judicial magistrate (CJM), Abhishek Phutela, had written a letter at the end of the year to district and sessions judge Paramjeet Singh about the forgery . Following this, an inquiry was marked in February to the enquiry officer Sushil Kumar Garg.