65-year-old man arrested for impersonating Delhi high court judge, duping cops

The suspect said he has been impersonating judges and taking favours and bribes from police officers for the past 15 years, and “will continue to do so after being released from jail -- in another city”, said an investigator working on the case on Saturday.

A 65-year-old man has been arrested for impersonating a Delhi high court judge and attempting to extort money from police officers at Samaypur Badli police station. The suspect said he has been impersonating judges and taking favours and bribes from police officers for the past 15 years, and “will continue to do so after being released from jail -- in another city”, said an investigator working on the case on Saturday.

The suspect, Narendra Kumar Agarwal, demanded ₹5lakh from police officers at Samaypur Badli police station. (HT Photo)

Deputy commissioner of police (outer north) Devesh Kumar Mahla said the suspect, Narendra Kumar Agarwal, is a resident of Adarsh Nagar.

On Friday, assistant commissioner of police (ACP) Anurag Dwivedi received a WhatsApp message on his official number from a man claiming to be a high court judge. “Hi here is...sitting judge Delhi High Court call me urgently” the message read. Police have withheld the name of the judge who the suspect was impersonating.

When Dwivedi called the number, the suspect said he would visit Samaypur Badli police station at 5 pm in connection with a writ petition pertaining to the station.

“The ACP conveyed this message to the station house officer, inspector Sanjay Kumar. Around 5pm, when Kumar was in his office, the suspect arrived in a Tata Nano car and identified himself as a high court judge. He told Kumar that he had come to the police station in connection with personal verification for a writ petition, filed in connection with organised crime in the jurisdiction of the police station,” Mahla said. The alleged writ petition does not exist, police officers said.

The suspect said that on December 15, he had tried to resolve the matter with head constable Pawan, who is posted on the organised crime beat, but the latter had not responded to his messages, police said. “The suspect asked Kumar to pay ₹5lakh to get the writ petition set aside, otherwise he would ensure the police officers at the station lose their job,” Mahla said.

Head constable Pawan also came to the police station and confirmed that the suspect called him, demanding money and threatening that he would be sacked if his demands were not met.

Kumar suspected something was amiss because the suspect had approached the police station through a WhatsApp message and not through official communication from the Delhi high court.

He then investigated and found that the suspect was not a high court judge, police said. “We checked his phone and found many WhatsApp messages in which he claimed to be a judge and threatened people to comply with his demands or he would cause them to lose their jobs,” Mahla said.

A case was registered under sections 419 (cheating by personation), 420 (cheating and dishonestly inducing delivery of property), 185 (illegal purchase or bid for property offered for sale by authority of public servant), 170 (personating a public servant) and 385 (putting person in fear of injury in order to commit extor­tion) of the Indian Penal Code and Agarwal was arrested.

The suspect was born and brought up at Filmistan in Sadar Bazaar and studied till class 11. He then started an oil business with his father. Two cases of the Essential Commodities Act were also registered against him in 1980, police said.

Agarwal got married in 1980 and has two sons, but his wife passed away in 1995, police said. He got married again in 1996 to a computer operator who used to work at his office, and has three sons with her, police said. “After 2005, he started trading in the stock market but suffered a big loss,” a senior police officer said.

In 2011, his wife filed a case of dowry and cruelty against him, for which he went to attend court several times, police said. That’s when he realised that police officers had to comply with directions issued by judges, police said. “In the past few years, he started calling and messaging police officers by impersonating a judge of the high court and used to ask for favours and extort money,” the officer said. Police are interrogating the suspect to find out how many times he has impersonated a judge and sought favours and extorted money from police officers, police said.