Mumbai Crime: Advocate charged with forging magistrate's signature on counterfeit bail order

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The Dahisar police have filed charges against a female advocate for allegedly forging a magistrate's signature on a counterfeit bail order for a murder accused and defrauding his wife of Rs 90,000.

According to the police officers from the crime branch, who are overseeing the investigation, the complainant, Satyata Ishwar Naidu (26), and her husband had been booked and arrested under murder charges by the Dahisar police station in the year 2021. Satyata approached the police in November 2022 when she discovered that her husband's bail order and bail bond receipt had been falsified.

Naidu in her complaint told the police that her husband had been arrested on murder charges and detained at Thane Central jail. Since then, she had been searching for a lawyer to secure her husband's release on bail.

In August 2022, one of her known people introduced her to a female lawyer named Hiral Jadhav.

Jadhav who assured Satyata that she could secure Ishwar Naidu's bail. For this service, they were asked to pay Rs 60,000. In October 2022, Jadhav informed Satyata that the bail amount set by the magistrate was Rs 25,000, which they would need to arrange.

Satyata collected the amount and handed it over to Jadhav. In return, she received a brown envelope containing the supposed bail order and a receipt for Rs 25,000 from the court.

However, when Satyata presented these documents at Thane jail to secure her husband's release, she was told that the bail order was incomplete. Upon contacting Jadhav, Satyata was informed that someone had filed a complaint against her husband, making bail impossible.

Jadhav reassured Satyata that she would resolve the matter. In November, when Satyata showed the receipt to court clerks, they revealed that it had not been issued by their office. It was then that Satyata discovered that the bail order was also counterfeit.

the victim then has submitted a written complaint in this regard to the senior officials of Mumbai police.

The matter was handed to the Mumbai's Crime Branch Unit XII. After the investigation, the FIR was registered at Dahisar police station on October 22.

"We have registered the case and charged Jadhav with cheating and forgery under sections 420, 465, 467, 468, and 471 of the Indian Penal Code and the case has been transferred to the Crime Branch Unit 12," said an officer from Dahisar police station.

"Complaint husband was eventually released on bail this year, currently conducting the investigation no arrest has been made yet further investigation is underway," said an officer from the crime branch.