Delhi High Court acquits Sonu Punjaban in prostitution, human trafficking case

The Delhi High Court on Tuesday acquitted Geeta Arora, popularly known as Sonu Punjaban, and co-accused Sandeep Bedwal in a human trafficking and prostitution case.

Justice Chandrasekharan Sudha overturned the 2020 decision of the trial court, which had sentenced Sonu Punjaban to 24 years in jail. The Court had ordered Bedwal to spend 20 years behind the bars. 

“In the absence of any independent corroboration, it would be unsafe to sustain the conviction of the appellants on the basis of such testimony. In the result, the appeals are allowed and the impugned judgment of conviction and order on sentence are set aside,” the Court ordered. 

The case stemmed from allegations that a 12-year-old girl was lured by Bedwal on the pretext of marriage in 2009. She was then allegedly trafficked through a network of individuals before being forced into prostitution, including during a period she was allegedly in Sonu Punjaban’s custody. 

However, the High Court today found that the prosecution’s case relied almost entirely on the testimony of the survivor. The Court said that testimony was “inconsistent and unreliable.”

Justice Sudha noted significant contradictions across her statements, from the initial FIR to her deposition in court, including discrepancies in the year of the incident, the sequence of trafficking and the specific role attributed to the accused. 

The Court also observed that key allegations against Arora appeared as “material improvements” introduced at later stages of testimony. 

“These improvements are not minor embellishments but introduce entirely new facets to the prosecution story… As noticed earlier, her version keeps changing with every statement recorded during the course of the inquiry/investigation, and trial of the case,” the Court observed. 

The High Court further pointed to serious gaps in the investigation, including the failure to trace or apprehend several alleged intermediaries in the trafficking chain. 

“In view of the foregoing analysis, this Court is of the considered opinion that the testimony of PW1 suffers from material contradictions, improvements and inconsistencies and is further weakened by her subsequent conduct in lodging multiple FIRs of a similar nature and resiling from allegations in one such case,” the Court said. 

Senior Advocate Vikas Pahwa with Advocates Preeti Pahwa, Neena Nagpal, Malak Bhatt, A Singh Rawat, Jasmeet S Chadha, Priyal Jain and Nishta Juneja appeared for Geeta Arora alias Sonu Punjaban. 

Advocates Akshay Bhandari, Megha Saroa, Kushal Kumar, Janak Raj Ambavat and Anmol Sachdeva represented Sandeep Bedwal. 

Additional Public Prosecutor Pramod Kumar represented the State. 

Advocates Faraz Maqbool, Sana June and A Sahitya Veena represented the victim.

[Read Judgment]