High Court declines relief to lawyer who posed as judge before traffic cops

The Punjab and Haryana High Court on Monday declined to quash a criminal case against a lawyer booked for pretending to be a judge when stopped by the traffic police in Chandigarh last year.

Justice Surya Pratap Singh observed that there are very specific allegations against the accused advocate Prakash Singh Marwah that he tried to overawe the police officials by projecting himself to be a judicial Magistrate.

The court also noted that when the cops continued to insist for his driving license, he chose to drive away from the spot.

The Court declined to accept Marwah’s argument that a false story had been made up by the police as he had complained against the “misdeeds” of senior police officers.  “This fact cannot be ignored that his presence, on the spot, while driving his car, is an admitted fact and therefore, the controversy to be determined in the trial would be as to whether the version projected by the production is true or the version of the petitioner,” the bench said.

In May 2024, Marwah, who was driving a Scorpio SUV, was stopped by an Assistant Sub Inspector (ASI) and a Constable as his front number plate was not properly visible.  It was found that a part of the number part was covered by a cloth.

Marwah stopped the vehicle only beyond the zebra crossing and when the cops started videography, he alighted from the car but refused to comply with the demand for production of his driving license.

He is also stated to have introduced himself as Judicial Magistrate ‘Prakash’ and even when a clarification was sought as to whether he was a magistrate, he nodded in the affirmative. A video of the incident had gone viral on social media.