Actor Suresh Gopi, the BJP candidate in the Thrissur Lok Sabha constituency, will have to stand trial in two cases of forgery and cheating related to the registration of his two luxury cars in Puducherry as a trial court here rejected his discharge petition.
The special court trying the cases against MPs and MLAs rejected the discharge petition on Friday evening. The reasons ascribed by the court for rejecting the plea of the BJP leader will be known when the court order is released in public domain.
Prosecution case
The prosecution case was that the accused had purchased two brand new Audi motor cars on January 20, 2010 and December 11, 2016 from a car dealer in Kochi. Later, the accused used fake address proof to register the two cars at the Puducherry Regional Transport Office for tax evasion. The acts of the actor-turned-politician, according to the prosecution, caused a loss of ₹19 lakh to the State.
The prosecution had invoked Indian Penal Code Section 420 (Cheating and dishonestly inducing delivery of property), Section 468 (forgery for the purpose of cheating), and Section 471 (using a forged document as genuine) and Section the 40 of the Motor Vehicles Act, which states that a motor vehicle must be registered with the registering authority in whose jurisdiction the owner resides or where the vehicle is normally kept.
The then senior Assistant Public Prosecutor M.S. Aromal Unni had argued that the BJP leader was a permanent resident of Thiruvananthapuram and had not resided in Puducherry. The actor had dishonestly obtained an insurance policy with a residence certificate in Puducherry where he had never resided, he argued.
‘No further payment’
According to the prosecution, the actor had made only one remittance towards the insurance policy and ignored its further payment, which proved his fraudulent intentions in obtaining the document. The false documents, which were intentionally obtained for cheating, were produced as genuine for obtaining the registration certificates of his cars, it was argued. The prosecution case was later conducted by the Assistant Public Prosecutor Sumy P. Baby.
The accused had never resided in Puducherry district at any span of time and dishonestly obtained the insurance policy in a temporary address where he never resided. The car that was purchased in 2016 was given for service five times between February 10, 2016, and October 12, 2017, at Kundannoor in Kochi. The vehicle was also booked 10 times for traffic violations during the period, which indicated that the car was used in Kerala in a daily manner for hours and normally kept in Kerala.
‘Fake lease deed’
Mr. Gopi, who had given the address of an apartment complex in Puducherry in the insurance certificate, later produced a lease document dated April 1, 2014 for four years. However, the stamp paper used for the lease deed was purchased on March 3, 2012, which indicated that the lease deed too was a fake one, the prosecution argued. The case was charge-sheeted by the Deputy Superintendent of Police, Crime Branch CU-Il Ernakulam. The counsel for Mr. Gopi said he would challenge the trial court order shortly.
