Ahmedabad:
The brother of a convict had to apologise to the Gujarat high court for cooking up a story about the convict's impending marriage, to get him released on parole. The bench of justices AM Kapadia and BN Mehta on Monday dropped contempt charges against Samsuddin after he apologised.
But he and others are now facing criminal charges for claiming that Samsuddin's brother, Amiruddin, who is serving a life sentence for narcotics trafficking, was to get married to a girl named Rubina. In fact, Samsuddin had even furnished a wedding invitation card with the application filed by him for Amiruddin's release on parole.
But the truth came to light when justice DH Waghela, who was hearing the case earlier, ordered a police inquiry to verify whether Amiruddin was indeed getting married. Following a police inquiry, it was learnt that the girl, Rubina, was already married and the mother of two children. Her husband's name is Faiyum.
The court then ordered that a case be lodged against Samsuddin, Rubina and others, and also initiated contempt of court proceedings against Samsuddin and his lawyer for misleading the court by submitting a fake affidavit.
Senior lawyer JM Panchal, who was appointed amicus curie in the case, also told the court that filing of a false affidavit is subject to contempt of court proceedings against the petitioner.
During the course of hearing, Samsuddin's lawyer, a female, was exempt from the proceedings as she had acquired an order from the Supreme Court exonerating her of all charges. But Samsuddin had no such luck and had to tender an apology before the bench of the high court.
"Samsuddin had filed the affidavit out of affection for his brother who had been in jail for a long time," the lawyer, Hashim Qureshi, said while offering an unconditional apology to the court.
After hearing the arguments of Panchal and Kureshi, the bench accepted Samsuddin's apology and dropped contempt proceedings against him.
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