Shashwati Chowdhury
Published on: June 6, 2022 at 18:38 IST
Sonia Doohan, the leader of the Nationalist Congress Party’s (NCP) student wing, was granted bail last week by a Magistrate court in Goa’s Panaji. She had been arrested by Goa police after they alleged that she had impersonated another person to stay at the resort where the Shiv Sena rebel MLAs who had fled from Maharashtra were staying.
According to the prosecution, Doohan entered the resort with her accomplice using a fake identity card, committing the offence of cheating by impersonating someone else.
According to Sections 419 and 420 of the Indian Penal Code, Doohan was charged for cheating.
The Prosecution said that she was found in possession of a list of MLAs from another political party who were also staying at the same resort and that she had a malafide intention to harm them at the direction of her own party.
The prosecution also opposed Doohan’s plea for Bail on the grounds that she could easily abscond or pose a threat to the case’s witnesses given her political history.
Doohan stated that she had been falsely implicated and that she was innocent. She sought bail, saying that she had no criminal antecedents and was willing to follow any court-imposed restrictions.
The Goa police’s opposition to bail was based on vague reasons, according to Judicial Magistrate Shahir Issani.
The Magistrate further stated that the allegation of cheating, as defined by Section 415 of the IPC, had not been proven, and that the alleged offences were of a bailable nature.
The Magistrate directed Goa police to release Doohan upon furnishing a personal bond of 20,000 after observing that apprehension of the police of accused absconding could be taken care of with stringent conditions.
Doohan, a resident of Haryana, rescued NCP leaders during the political crisis in Maharashtra in 2019 by escorting them out of a Delhi hotel.