Possession of forged documents by an Afghan national raises credible suspicion regarding immigration status, shifting the burden of proof to the individual to establish lawful citizenship.

Judgment :

G. Satapathy, J.

1. This is the bail application U/S.483 of the BNS S by the petitioner for grant of bail in connection with Airport P.S. Case No.192 of 2025 corresponding to C.T. Case No.1043 of 2025 pending in the Court of learned JMFC (Cog. Taking-V), Bhubaneswar, for commission of offence punishable U/Ss.338/339/340/336(2) of r/w.Sec.12/14/14-A of Foreigners Act.

2. As per the allegation, the petitioner, who was detained at the Bhubaneswar, Airport after his arrival from Dubai in Flight No.6E-1448, was found upon immigration verification to be an Afgan National having Afgan passport No. 0247655 and his original name to be Mohammad Yusuf, however, the passport/document shown by him discloses him to be Yaya Khan, S/o- Moti Khan, DOB- 20.05.1971, PP No. U1380251 with address Peyton Sahi, Buxibazar, Cuttack-753001, Odisha which is found to be false and he had allegedly been staying in India with forged and fabricated documents since 25.10.2018. On this fact, FIR was lodged and the petitioner was taken into custody landing him before this Court in this bail application.

3. Heard Mr. Jeet Swarup Samal, learned counsel for the petitioner and Mr. C. Mohanty, learned Addl. PP in the matter and perused the record.

4. After having considered the rival submissions upon perusal of record, there appears allegation against the petitioner that he is an Afgan National and he by deliberate concealment of his original identity as Mohammad Yousaf is un-authorizedly staying in India by describing himself as Yaya Khan, a resident of Peyton Sahi, Cuttack with allegedly fake and forged passport. Besides, it is stated in the FIR that the petitioner was allegedly found with Aadhaar Card, PAN Card, Driving License and certificate of Registration of Motor Cycle No. OD-05-AV-3286 at the time of his detention at Airport and all these documents are in the name of Yaya Khan.

5. In the circumstance, the allegations raised against the petitioner are not only limited to a mere technical violation of immigration norms, but also indicate a case of deliberate concealment of identity and creating forged documents to obtain benefit of Indian citizenship to stay in India, however, the law makes a clear distinction between the lawful citizens and illegal migrants, but persons falling in the category of illegal migrants are prohibited to stay/reside in India without valid passport and visa. There is in fact allegation against a person like the petitioner in this case for forging passport, which is evident from the reply from Foreigners Regional Registration Office, Bureau of Immigration, Hyderabad vide its office letter dated 18.09.2025 that the passport No.U1380251 and passport No.02457655 belongs to same person i.e. Yaya Khan @ Mohammad Yousaf and both Yaya Khan @ Mohammad Yousaf are single individual and the accused petitioner had arrived to Delhi, India through Afghan passport No.02457655 on 25.10.2018. It is not out of place to mention here that Section 9 of Foreigners Act, 1946 provides that if there appears credible evidence before the Court raising a reasonable suspicion that the person is not an Indian citizen, the burden of proof shifts to that person to establish that he is not a foreigner and in this case, it is alleged that the petitioner being an Afghan National is un-authorizedly staying in India by forging Indian passport. This Court at this stage of consideration of bail does not decide the probative value of the documents, but the petitioner has been alleged to be possessing an Afghan passport as well as Indian passport, which was claimed to be forged, but the petitioner was also found with some Indian documents like Aadhaar