A man convicted of murder would not think twice before committing fraud. Disgraced IPS office Ravi Kant Sharma, convicted of plotting the murder of a woman journalist, has now been caught trying to obtain interim bail from the Delhi High Court by presenting prima facie forged medical documents.
Should the court find that the documents are in fact forged, Sharma will find the punishment for perjury, forgery and contempt of court added to his life sentence.
Although the documents were presented by his wife Madhu in court, she cannot be party to the alleged forgery because she is Sharma’s legal representative and it is assumed that the documents she presented in court were given to her by Sharma.
Sharma had applied for interim bail in the Delhi High Court on November 15 last year. He sought bail by claiming that he needed to go to Silver Oaks Hospital in Mohali to seek medical opinion on a recurring back pain from the same doctor who had operated on his back in 2005.
Sharma’s wife, Madhu, filed an affidavit saying that Dr Sanjeev Sharma, a neurologist at Delhi’s GB Pant Hospital, had advised that Sharma should be taken to his doctor at Mohali for his evaluation and opinion as he was familiar with the case. Adding a sense of urgency to the bail plea, she said she had got an appointment with the Mohali doctor for December 26, 2008. She also submitted a registration card signed by Dr Sharma from GB Pant hospital as proof.
R.K. Sharma further said he needed to get a cataract operation done and his wife said she had obtained an appointment at the RP Centre at Aiims for December 29, 2008 for the surgery.
However, when the matter came up for hearing at the court on December 19, the court noted that neither of the two problems seemed urgent in nature and questioned the manner in which Madhu had already taken appointments with the doctors without the approval of the court.
The court listed the matter for January 14 for further hearing, giving enough time for the Delhi Police to verify the grounds for the bail.
So when the Delhi Police went to GB Pant Hospital to check the veracity of the documents, they found a large number of anomalies in the claims made by Madhu. The hospital OPD register showed that Sharma had never attended the Neurosurgery OPD till the date of the report.
The doctor in Neurosurgery Department, Dr. Sanjeev Sharma, whose signature is on the registration card produced by Madhu clarified that the OPD prescription of Sharma is not his handwriting although the signature resembled his. He also said that to the best of his knowledge he had never signed any such prescription.
GB Pant Hospital has also said that the OPD registration number on Sharma’s registration card does not exist in hospital records.
What is a fact is that R.K. Sharma visited GB Pant Hospital on July 19, 2007 in the cardiology OPD vide OPD registration number 1401781 and on December 20, 2008 he attended the Gastroentology OPD vide registration number 1469736. Another interesting fact that came out in the scrutiny of the documents is that the OPD prescription slip of GB Pant hospital has been countersigned by the medical officer of Jail No. 1 of Tihar as true copy. The Delhi Police is in the process of verifying the signature of medical officer of Tihar as well.
Should Sharma be dealt with sternly which might serve as a deterrant to others?
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