Ahmedabad: Gujarat High Court has upheld the conviction of a man accused in fake Indian currency notes (FICN) case by a special National Investigation Agency (NIA) court and reduced his seven-year sentence to the period already served in prison.
Mohammed Mahefuz Shaikh has already spent four years and eight months in prison out of the seven-year jail term that he was awarded in Nov 2022 under sections 489B and 120B of IPC.
The case stemmed from a June 4, 2019 operation by Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI) at Surat railway station, when its officers intercepted Vinod Nishad and seized counterfeit notes with face value of Rs 2 lakh comprising 100 notes of Rs 2,000 denomination, along with a mobile phone, bag and travel documents. The NIA took over the probe from DRI following orders from the ministry of home affairs in July 2019. During the trial, the prosecution relied on bank records showing transfers totalling Rs 1.2 lakh from Shaikh to Nishad and Nishad’s wife, call detail records, jail records indicating prior association and forensic confirmation that the seized notes were counterfeit. On this, the bench said, “The sentence imposed by the learned trial court upon the present appellant original accused No 2 Mohammed Mahefuz Shaikh for the offence punishable under Section 489B read with Section 120B of the Indian Penal Code, i.e. imprisonment for seven years, is modified to the extent that the sentence already undergone by the present appellant shall be treated as the sentence imposed upon him.
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