Aashiana rape case: Gaurav Shukla may face forgery charges

LUCKNOW: The Juvenile Justice Board's (JJB) decision that Aashiana rape case prime accused GauravShukla was an adult when he committed the crime, may lead to fresh criminal charges against him -conspiracy to forge documents to avail undue relief from court.
Had he been a minor, the maximum sentence could not have exceeded three-year term. Now that he has been declared an adult, he may be liable to an eight-year term for rape alone.Charges of forgery to prove himself a minor, however, might bring him an additional term of Years.
In a bid to establish himself a minor at the time of crime in May 2005, Gaurav had submitted the Transfer Certificate (TC) of Chhaya Public School (CPS) in Bangla Bazaar area of Lucknow which declared his date of berth as October 2, 1989.
During the course of trial, the JJB sought personal appearance of the principal of CPS, Krishna Murari Singh. He testified that he had been the principal of CPS since 1996. When he was shown the TC of CPS that Gaurav Shukla had submitted before the JJB, Krishna Murari admitted that the document was in his own handwriting and had his signatures. He however claimed that the said TC had reference number 218 of the Scholars Register. Murari also informed the JJB that the reference number 218 of Scholars Register is allotted to Yasmeen (II) and her date of berth is February 25, 1991.
He said he was the only authority to issue TCs in the school and confirmed that he had never issued any TC to Gaurav Shukla as the latter had never studied at CPS ever. He confirmed that the photocopy of the TC submitted by Gaurav Shukla was a completely forged one. The deposition is sufficient to explain that the TC submitted by Gaurav Shukla was a forged one and possible a tampered copy of another TC that was actually issued by the CPS to a genuine student -- a fit case of a conspiracy to commit fraud to mislead the JJB, say legal experts.
The prosecution is now preparing to request the appropriate court to order for an FIR against the rape accused in connection with this fraud. "It is only after an FIR is lodged and the manner in which Gaurav had procured the TC is thoroughly investigated that the conspiracy behind the fraud can be exposed," said Jalaj Gupta, the lawyer representing the victim.
Incidentally, the rape case was not the only crime that Gaurav has been charged with. He already has two more criminal cases pending against him.
For a quick recap, on May 2, 2005, a 13-year-old girl was abducted from Aashiana Colony and gangraped by six youths in a moving car. During investigations it came to light that the prime accused was the nephew of former Samajwadi Party MLC Aruna Shankar Shukla alias Anna. Barring two of the six accused - Mishra and Bakshi - the remaining four accused were declared juveniles and the case was transferred to a JJB for further disposal.
On September 5, 2007 additional Sessions Judge Anirudh Singh sentenced two of the adult accused Aman Bakshi and Bhartendu Mishra to 10 years rigorous imprisonment and a fine of Rs 15,000. The JJB also convicted two of the minor accused in the case but the case against the prime accused lingered. The JJB had earlier declared him minor but after the victim's father in April 2010 approach the session's court to establish that the particular accused was an adult, it directed the JJB to take a fresh look at the case.