Chhota Rajan, 3 others get 7 years in jail in fake passport case

New Delhi, April 25 (IANS) A CBI court here on Tuesday sentenced underworld don Rajendra Sadashiv Nikalje alias Chhota Rajan to seven years in jail for holding a fake passport.

It is the first of the nearly 85 cases in which Rajan has been held guilty.

Besides Chhota Rajan, the other convicts sentenced to a seven-year jail term by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) Special Judge Virender Kumar Goyal are then Passport Officers Jayashree Dattatray Rahate, Deepak Natvarlal Shah and Lalitha Lakshmanan.

The court has also slapped a fine of Rs 15,000 on each of the convicts.

Rajan, who was present via video-conferencing, was held guilty of possessing the fake passport.

The court said the passport officials abused their position by issuing the fake passport to Rajan.

All the four were also convicted of cheating, using as genuine a forged document, forgery for purpose of cheating, cheating by impersonation and criminal conspiracy under the Indian Penal Code and the Passport Act.

The court also convicted them for criminal misconduct under the Prevention of Corruption Act.

On June 8, 2016, the court had framed charges against Chhota Rajan as well as Rahate, Shah and Lakshmanan.

The CBI chargesheet alleged that Chhota Rajan got a fake passport issued in the name of Mohan Kumar from Bengaluru in 1998-99 in connivance with Rahate, Shah and Lakshmanan.

Rajan is accused in nearly 85 cases relating to crimes like murder, extortion, smuggling and drug trafficking. He has cases pending against him in Maharashtra, Delhi, Uttar Pradesh, Gujarat and those registered by the CBI.

The don was arrested in Indonesia in October 2015 and deported to India the next month.