Bhopal— When Komal Pandey went to Mandla Jail on October 22, 2021, after the court sentenced Aniruddh Pratap to a five-year jail term, no one realized the wrong person had been arrested. Pandey had all the correct answers to the personal details of the accused— the name of his father and his address.
47-year-old Komal Pandey was a 'proxy prisoner' for 70-year-old Aniruddh Pratap Chaturvedi.
The Mandla jail authorities fed the information to an e-presence portal made to maintain the attendance of inmates inside the jail. They uploaded his photograph and fingerprints to the database before sending him to prison.
Two other men, Sham Sunder Khampariya and Virat Tiwari, who came to serve the five years of jail term were impersonating Amit Khamparia and Dashrat Tiwari — the real accused.
While the three men — Komal Pandey, Sham Sunder Khampariya and Virat Tiwari — were sent to jail, the real convicts remained scot-free.
What Was The Case?
In 2011, acting on the complaint of commuters, the then additional district magistrate of Mandla district caught Amit Khamparia, his father Aniruddh Pratap Chaturvedi, and nine others for charging extra toll instead of fixed government rate and manipulating the receipts.
Amit was the contractor of a state highway toll located on the Mandla - Jabalpur highway near Kanha Tiger Reserve.
The Mandla Police lodged an FIR under sections 420, 467, 468, 471, 474, and 34 of the Indian Penal Code at the Khatiya Police station of Mandla district.
Eventually, all the arrested accused secured bail in the subsequent years.
What Happened In The Court?
After almost 10 years of court proceedings came to the conclusion, the court awarded five years of jail to all 11 accused after hearing the final arguments of both advocates.
Among these 11 were three proxy accused.
On October 21, 2021, in the decade-old case of forgery and cheating at a government toll plaza, they appeared in the court of Mandla Additional Session Judge. They were impersonating Aniruddh Pratap Chaturvedi, Amit Khamparia, and Dashrat Tiwari.
After the verdict, they were taken to Mandla district jail with conviction warrants.
After entering the court, the proxy accused signed all the papers which mentioned the names of the real accused. Advocates presenting the case also identified them as the real accused. The police say they allegedly were hand-in gloves with the accused and the investigating officer.
Speaking to BOOM, Ashar Ali Warsi, senior advocate of Indore High Court, said, "It's the duty of the prosecution (Police and advocate) and the court to verify the identity of the accused before initiating the proceedings of court. The identity should have been matched from the police's charge sheet."
What Happened In Jail?
According to the Madhya Pradesh Identification of Prisoners Rules, 1967, it is compulsory to verify the names, photos, and measurements of the convicts before putting them in the dungeon.
Despite the massive paperwork and digital verifications, the jail authorities did not verify the names and photos of the real convicts with the proxy ones.
The three men who pretended to be accused spent 85 days in jail before securing bail.
How Was The Case Of Proxy Inmates Cracked?
A week after their release, one of the proxy inmates Komal Pandey, a resident of Jabalpur district gave a written complaint to Jabalpur superintendent of police exposing the proxy inmate case.
He claimed that a local businessman named Amit Khamparia who was convicted for charging a higher toll and manipulating receipts had fraudulently put him in jail in place of his aged father.
Komal alleged that a case was registered at Khatia police station against Amit, his father Aniruddh Pratap Chaturvedi, and others on fraud and other charges in 2011.
Pandey, a father of two young children, alleged that on September 15, 2021, Amit along with 3-4 other henchmen took him to Mandla district court and "made him sign a few papers" which were in the name of Amit's father Aniruddh Chaturvedi. They threatened to kill his family, he alleged.
A week later, on September 22, 2021, Amit's men again took him to the court and allegedly forced him to sign the papers that were supposed to be signed by Amit's father.
When the court awarded five years of sentence to his father, police arrested Pandey instead.
When the whole fiasco came to light, Jabalpur SP Siddharth Bahuguna ordered a probe headed by Priyanka Shukla, CSP of Jabalpur's Bargi block. After sending dozens of notices to the accused, complainant, and courts and verifying the pieces of evidence, Shukla submitted her report to Jabalpur SP in October 2022.
She found all the allegations made by Kamal Pandey are true. Based on the findings of the investigation, Nainpur police of Mandla district on December 2 lodged an FIR against seven people for misleading the court and jail authorities.
Investigating officer Priyanka Shukla told BOOM, "We followed the basics of the investigation by matching photos, fingerprints, and call details."
"We matched their photos available in the e-presence with the photos available in the case diary. With the help of the National Automated Fingerprint Identification System (NAFIS), we matched their fingerprints. We also checked the call records made by the inmates from jail. We found that, in a span of 85 days, Amit's advocate met Komal and two other inmates 15 times and talked to their kin 48 times. Komal made 16 calls to his wife during the jail term," she said explaining the details of the investigation.
"It became crystal clear that all three were proxy inmates serving a jail term on someone else behalf," she added.
The investigation further suggests that proxy inmates were presumably lured for money as out of three proxy inmates only Komal Pandey approached the police while two others chose to remain silent.
When asked why Komal retracted and complained to the police, Shukla said, "The complainant and the convict Amit must have some mutual agreement to become proxy prisoners which did not go well in the end. They might have promised him a quick release with some perks but it backfired and he spent three months in jail away from his family and children. Besides, after the bail, Komal would have realised that he become a convicted criminal in the eye of Mandla prison authorities and may spend five years in jail."
She said that Komal and other proxy inmates chose to remain silent and signed all the papers in court as well as in the prison. "They become proxy inmates of their own will and misled the court and jail authorities, taking advantage of the loopholes," she said.
A fortnight after Priyanka Shukla submitted the report, SP Jabalpur forwarded the probe report to Mandla Police last month for further action.
On the direction of Mandla SP, Nainpur police booked three proxy inmates including the main accused Amit and his father, and others under sections 417, 419, 120 B, 420, 466, 467, 471, 506, and 34 of IPC.
Speaking to BOOM, Rajendra Mohan Dubey (58), town inspector of the Nainpur police station who is also a complainant in the case said, "Since they lied inside the courtroom and mislead the court, police lodged an FIR under nine sections of the IPC which may surge after the investigation."
The police have also booked Amit, his father Anirudh Chaturvedi, and others but have not yet arrested the accused.
"After the prima facie investigation, we lodged the FIR but sections and names will add up after the investigation. There are chances of involvement of advocates, prison authorities, and others that need to be investigated properly. Police will make the arrest after collecting the evidence and facts," Dubey said.
BOOM spoke to Komal Pandey to understand what exactly happened.
"Whatever I had to say, I already said in my complaint to the police which turned out to be true. I was framed in a false case under pressure and I don't want to go jail again," he said.
While it has been proven that Pandey was imprisoned instead of the real accused, it is also true that he didn't speak in court and only complained after spending 85 days in prison.
When asked if he was threatened by the accused Amit as mentioned in the police complaint, he said that he had neither met nor spoken to Amit since his bail. "There is no threat for now," he said.
Pandey said he only wants justice. "I have been leveled as a criminal which I'm not," he said.
