'Being An Advocate, Presumed To Be Well-Aware Of Consequences': P&H High Court Denies Bail To Lawyer Accused In Land-Grabbing Case

The Punjab and Haryana High denied regular bail to a practising advocate accused of colluding with co-accused persons to legitimize forged trust documents and manipulating court proceedings.[2026 LiveLaw (PH) 246]Justice Manisha Batra observed, "Being an Advocate by profession, he is presumed to be well-aware about the consequences of the actions done by him, by manipulation of the legal proceedings, obviously with intent to influence judicial outcome to the detriment of the complainant-Trust. Taking into consideration the nature of the subject offences, the active role attributed to the petitioner and the attendant facts and circumstances, this Court is of the considered opinion that the petitioner does not deserve to be extended benefit of bail. Accordingly, finding no compelling ground to allow the present petition, the same is dismissed."The case arose out of two FIRs, whose investigation was handed to the CBI pursuant to this Court's earlier direction dated 18.10.2023. FIR No. 133 was lodged by the Manager of Guru Nanak Vidhya Bhandar Trust, Daryaganj, New Delhi, alleging that 32 bighas of land at Zirakpur-Patiala Road, purchased and possessed by the Trust since 1986, had become the target of a conspiracy by several accused persons, who registered a similarly-named fake trust, prepared forged documents, and on 10.03.2022 forcibly entered the land with armed accomplices, assaulting security guards and damaging CCTV cameras and phones to seize illegal possession. FIR No. 303 alleged that the same accused had created and used forged documents to claim ownership of the Trust's land.Upon re-registration of both FIRs as RC-12 and RC-13, CBI investigation revealed that the accused, through their fake trust, had filed a civil suit before the Court of the Civil Judge (Junior Division), Dera Bassi, through the petitioner, Vikas Kumar, an advocate. After their interim injunction application was dismissed with strictures on 04.04.2022, the petitioner allegedly worked with the co-accused to shift the litigation to Bathinda, where he regularly practised, by summoning records and witnesses, including bankers of the genuine Trust, in four unrelated cases, in order to extract false testimony and financial information. He was also alleged to have filed complaints in the name of co-accused persons against the Trust's Manager to exert pressure, and to have manipulated the Trust's banker-witnesses into testifying for the fake trust.The investigation further revealed that one Prabhdeep Singh, in whose name a complaint had purportedly been filed to summon the Trust's records and witnesses, stated that he had never authorised any such application and that his signature had been fraudulently obtained by the petitioner. Prabhdeep Singh also produced a recorded conversation in which the petitioner allegedly admitted to wrongfully summoning the documents and witnesses and asked him not to cooperate with the CBI investigation. A composite chargesheet was filed in RC-12 and RC-13, following which the petitioner was summoned by the trial court, surrendered on 15.07.2025, and was denied bail by the Special Judge, CBI Court, SAS Nagar (Mohali), vide order dated 31.10.2025.Senior counsel for the petitioner argued that he had joined the investigation throughout and was never taken into custody during that process, that no recovery had been effected from him, and that he was not named in either FIR nor assigned any role in them originally. It was submitted that the disputed documents were allegedly forged before March 2022, at a time when the petitioner had no association with the co-accused, and that he was merely representing one of the litigating trusts as an advocate, without any personal stake in the underlying property dispute, which remained pending before the civil court. It was further argued that he had been in custody since 25.07.2025, that the trial was unlikely to conclude soon with only 2 of 145 prosecution witnesses examined so far, and that he had a permanent residence with no flight risk.The Special Public Prosecutor for the CBI and senior counsel for the complainant argued that the petitioner, while representing the co-accused in the civil suit, had deliberately shifted the litigation from Dera Bassi to Bathinda and colluded with co-accused persons, including bankers of the complainant Trust, to procure false statements in favour of the fake trust. It was further alleged that he colluded with a co-accused who had filed an unrelated Domestic Violence Act complaint, using it as a vehicle to summon witnesses and extract records relating to the genuine Trust. It was submitted that the petitioner's antecedents were not clean and that there was a real possibility of evidence tampering or witness intimidation if he were released on bail.The Court held that the allegations against the petitioner, collusion in preparing forged documents to mimic the legitimate Trust, efforts to legitimize those documents through forum shopping,...

'Being An Advocate, Presumed To Be Well-Aware Of Consequences': P&H High Court Denies Bail To Lawyer Accused In Land-Grabbing Case

Aiman J. Chishti

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Aiman J. Chishti

'Being An Advocate, Presumed To Be Well-Aware Of Consequences': P&H High Court Denies Bail To Lawyer Accused In Land-Grabbing Case

Aiman J. Chishti

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Aiman J. Chishti

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