A Delhi court has directed for initiation of criminal proceedings against a woman banker for prima facie deposing falsely before it to save her husband from punishment in a 2009 robbery case.
The court held that Supriya had passed on to accused Jitesh Gogia account details of jeweller Deepak Gupta, whose father Puran Chand was robbed in broad day light here of Rs 1.55 crore.
Gogia was awarded five years prison term by the court. Supriya, who worked in a private bank, had later married Gogia.
It said Gogia had later informed his four associates about the account details and hatched a conspiracy to commit the robbery.
"Supriya was legally bound by an oath to state the truth in the court which she did not do. This being so, I am of a considered view that this court cannot allow the witness Supriya to pollute the stream of justice by making a false statement on oath for reasons writ large and get away with it.
"I hereby direct that she be prosecuted and tried for these offences effecting administration of justice so that it is deterrence for others attempting to indulge into such adventurism," Additional Sessions Judge Kamini Lau said.
The court also awarded seven year imprisonment each to Gogia's associates Vikas Aggarwal, Harshit Prabhakar and Parveen Goel after convicting them in the robbery case. It also imposed a fine of Rs 50,000 each on the four convicts.
One of the accused, Deepak Gogia, was declared a proclaimed offender in the case after he did not appear before the court.
The judge held them guilty, saying that despite being well-qualified and belonging to affluent families, they committed the offence as they "were driven by desire for easy money for meeting their affluent life styles".
