Metropolitan Magistrate Bharti Garg has acquitted defendant Dhiraj Kumar who was accused by police of forging an Indigo Airlines Delhi-Lucknow air ticket using Photoshop on his mobile phone. Police claimed that Kumar did this to accompany her close relative to the boarding pass counter as she was unaware of the security procedure inside the airport.

The court said that several reasonable doubts have emerged in the account advanced by the prosecution and that the testimony of prosecution witnesses does not inspire confidence as to the guilt alleged against the defendant.

Because the prosecution failed to establish that the defendant used counterfeit airline tickets, the court said it was unable to establish criminal trespass in this case.

“The only fact that comes to light is that he had entered the terminal building to see his next of kin and help her through security at the airport. It is amply clear that there is no no intention to intimidate, insult or annoy any other person at the airport, but rather to accompany his relative to the airport,” the court said.

The court said at most that “the element of knowledge could be imputed to the defendant that he might annoy airport officials by illegally entering the terminal building, but the intention is a mental state of a more serious degree and should not be lightly inferred”.

“Mere unauthorized occupation of premises without the requisite criminal intent may be trespass but not criminal trespass,” the court said.

Regarding the counterfeit ticket, the court said there was no evidence that the alleged counterfeit ticket recorded by the prosecution was recovered from the defendant’s possession or mobile phone.

“In all the circumstances, the possibility cannot be denied that the counterfeit note was planted on the defendant, thereby rendering the entire collection procedure doubtful,” the court said.