Man accused of making hoax call of bomb threat to Manmohan Singh acquitted

New Delhi, April 19 (IANS) A Delhi court has acquitted a man accused of making a hoax call to police on the Independence Day in 2005, and claiming a bomb threat to the then Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.

Metropolitan Magistrate Vipul Sandwar acquitted the accused over 17 years after registration of an FIR, charging him with offences under two different sections of the Indian Penal Code.

"The prosecution has not been able to establish beyond reasonable doubt that accused Mahesh has committed offences under sections 182 and 507 of the IPC and is found not guilty in the present case," the magistrate said.

He during his cross-examination, the key witness in the case, PCO/STD booth owner Lalit Ahmed, was "unsettled" and claimed that he was not at his PCO at the time the call was placed.

"Since prosecution witness 2 (Ahmed) was not present at the time when the call was made, anything deposed by him would be in the nature of hearsay and hence, not admissible. Accordingly, the prosecution has failed to prove the offence punishable under section 182 of the IPC."

The prosecution had failed to prove that the accused was the person who had placed the fraudulent call to the police, and the court said that the evidence presented was insufficient to connect the accused to the commission of the crime.

"The prosecution has failed to establish that accused Mahesh was the person making the call from the PCO shop of PW2 and therefore, in the absence of identification of accused, the offence punishable under section 507 of the IPC is not proved," it said.

The prosecution claims that on July 19, 2005, Mahesh called the police emergency number 100 from the PCO booth and provided "false information" to the police, stating that the then Prime Minister faced a bomb threat on Independence Day.

Following the FIR's registration, charges were framed against Mahesh in December 2010.