Reshma Khan, the wife of Mumbai Bharatiya Janata Party leader Haider Azam, who has been booked for allegedly trying to get an Indian passport on fake documents while being a Bangladeshi, has approached the Bombay High Court seeking pre-arrest bail.

Her plea came up for hearing before justice Sarang Kotwal on Friday. However, justice Kotwal recused himself from hearing the plea. It will now be listed before another bench next week.

Khan approached the HC after the sessions court rejected her plea on January 3 observing that her birth certificate was prima facie (on the face of it) a forged one and that her custodial interrogation was required to probe how it, where and who else was involved in it.

Her plea before the HC states that the case has been registered out of political vendetta. The alleged incident pertains to a period between 2015 and 2017. Whereas the complaint was filed on December 10, 2021.

After 6 years, they have culled out that the birth certificate was fake. Even a senior police inspector of Malvani police station and the then ACP have been dragged into the case, said her counsel.

Khan has contended that she was willing to submit herself to a DNA test too however, the police were not willing for the same.

Khan had been granted interim protection from arrest while her plea was pending before the sessions court. However, after the sessions court rejected her plea, she was not given relief for 14 days to approach the HC.

The case was lodged by retired police inspector Deepak Kurulkar against Khan and the state’s Additional Director General of police Deven Bharti and Assistant Commissioner of Police Deepak Phatangare. The complaint on the police officials was for blocking action against Khan back in 2017.

The complaint alleges that she illegally entered the country from neighbouring Bangladesh and submitted fake documents to get a passport. As per the retired police inspector’s probe in 2017, who was in the Special Branch of the city police, she was not an Indian national. The complaint was lodged for offences of forgery, common intention and under provisions of the Foreigners Act.

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