Lagatar24 Desk
New Delhi, July 4: The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has filed a case against two couples under the Passport Act after French Visa Service discovered alleged passport fraud.
According to a First Information Report filed in the case, fraud involving two different passports—Passport No. U2488935 issued from the Regional Passport Office in Jalandhar and Passport No. V5517012 issued from the Regional Passport Office in Delhi—was discovered at French Visa Service in New Delhi. The passports were issued in the names of Gursharandeep Singh, the son of Simal Singh, and Sarvjit Singh Notay, the son of Kirpal Singh Notay. The biometrics on both passports are identical.
Further evidence revealed that Simal Singh and hs wife Manjit Kaur, residents of Jalandhar in Punjab, got passport no. U2486935 for their minor son Gursharandeep Singh from RPO, Jalandhar in 2020, which was valid until November 2023.
Additionally, it is revealed that Simal Singh and his wife Manjit Kuar plotted with Kirpal Singh Notay and his wife Suresh Kumari Notay, both Tilak Nagar, Delhi, residents, to get their son another passport.
They created a bogus or forged birth certificate for Sarvjit Singh Notay, allegedly issued on January 28, 2010, by Municipal Corporation Faridabad, falsely claiming he was the child of Kirpal Singh Notay and Suresh Kumari Notay.
In furtherance of the aforementioned criminal conspiracy, Kirpal Singh Notay submitted an application dated January 13, 2022, to the Regional Passport Office in New Delhi for the issuance of a passport in the name of Sarvjit Singh Notay, attaching Gursharandeep Singh’s photograph to the application. Gursharandeep Singh also added the signature “Sarvjit Singh” to the application.
In support of the information contained in the aforementioned application, Kirpal Singh Notay and his wife Suresh Kumari Notay included an affidavit, the fake birth certificate, and a photocopy of their passports. Subsequently, RPO, New Delhi granted Sarvjit Singh Notay a passport with the number V5517012.
The evidence also revealed that Gursharandeep Singh initially tried to apply for a visa at the Spanish Embassy in New Delhi using a forged passport bearing the number V5517012 issued in the name of Sarvjit Singh Notay, but the application was turned down by the embassy in March 2022.
In May 2022, he made another effort to apply for a visa at the Spanish Embassy using passport number V5517012, but this time the Embassy of Spain turned him down as well. Gursharandeep Singh thereafter made an attempt to apply for a visa at the French Embassy using passport U2486935. He sought to obtain a visa using a fake passport with the number V5517012, but the French Embassy rejected it in December 2022 because his fingerprints matched those taken by the Spanish Embassy.
“After the Embassy of France detected the fraud and informed the agency, a case has been registered against both the couples under Indian Penal Code sections of fraud, forgery criminal conspiracy and under Passport Act,” said a senior official.
