Kothagudem: Advocate, seven others sentenced to one year imprisonment for presenting ‘duplicate’ accused in court

When the case was posted for judgment on September 26, 2013, the One-Town police informed the First Additional Judicial First Class Magistrate M Kiranmayi that in the place of an accused Gonemalla Nagaraju, another person was appearing before the court

Kothagudem: Third Additional Judicial Magistrate of First Class, V Siva Naik, sentenced an advocate and seven others to one year of simple imprisonment and imposed a fine of Rs.1,000 on each on charges of impersonation. The advocate and the other accused were found to have connived to produce a ‘duplicate’ accused in place of the original accused before the court.

The advocate in question had represented a few persons accused of beating a person J Ramesh on September 28, 2009 in Kothagudem.

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When the case was posted for judgment on September 26, 2013, the One-Town police informed the First Additional Judicial First Class Magistrate M Kiranmayi that in the place of an accused Gonemalla Nagaraju, another person was appearing before the court.

The judge, after questioning the accused if anyone was impersonating, directed the police to check the identity cards of the accused. When the Aadhaar card of the accused in question was checked, he was found to be actually Chitturi Suryanarayana, impersonating Nagaraju.

Suryanarayana confessed that he appeared before the court twice, as Nagaraju was in Saudi Arabia. Then the judge directed the police to book the advocate and the accused in the above case for impersonating, cheating and giving false information to the court.

Judge Siva Naik examined 12 witnesses on behalf of the prosecution and found the accused guilty on Tuesday. The advocate Lakkineni Venkata Durga Rao was sentenced to one year of simple imprisonment under Section 419 of IPC and one year simple imprisonment under Section 177 part-2 of IPC while ordering to run both the sentences concurrently.

The other accused Chitturi Suryanaryana, Mukkera Srinivas, Polamuri Srinivas, Mohammad Razak, Joga Visweshwar Rao, Allakonda Koti and Durgarasi Venkanna were sentenced to one year of simple imprisonment under Section 177 of the IPC.

The case against G Ramchander, abated due to his death.