Inside MP court, a law intern is labelled PFI agent and ‘targeted for being Muslim’

As a 21-year-old law intern, Sonu Mansuri had been regularly visiting the Indore district court over the last five months to observe court proceedings and assist her seniors. But on January 28, she became the subject of a viral video, surrounded by a group of lawyers, who grabbed her collar, grilled her, searched her, and termed her a PFI agent. 

The lawyers found over Rs 1 lakh in cash in her pockets, and lodged a police complaint alleging that she was taking funds from the prohibited Popular Front of India to get details of “sensitive” cases while impersonating a lawyer. Sonu was arrested the same day, and the media published reports on similar lines – most of them without her version. 

An FIR was filed under IPC sections 419 (punishment for cheating by personation), 420 (cheating and dishonestly inducing delivery of property) and 120-B (criminal conspiracy) at the MG Road police station. Sonu is in Indore central jail under judicial custody.

The possibility of bail is allegedly marred with its own set of problems, according to sources privy to the case, including Sonu’s family. But let’s first take a brief look at the allegations.

The cash wad

A student at the Dewas government law college, Sonu was interning under senior lawyer Noor Jahan Khan. One of Khan’s clients has told the police that the cash Sonu was carrying was given by him.

“I am a client of Noor Jahan. She was handling my case linked to a check bounce. She had told me to submit an amount of Rs 1,26,000 for stamp duty and other legal formalities. On January 28, I went to court to hand her the money, but she was not around and asked me to give it to her intern Sonu Mansuri,” Asif Ansari told Newslaundry. He has also given a statement to the MG Road police station indicating the same.

Sonu’s elder brother Iqbal Mansuri said she is “the only one in our family who has been this educated and is pursuing a good career”. “We just met her once after her arrest. She told us that she went to court on the instructions of her senior and collected the money from the client. We are not able to understand the allegations…the police also didn’t show us anything. She has been trapped.”

Impersonation and video recordings

“The basic allegation against her is that she is a fake lawyer. She has never claimed that she was a lawyer. Anyone who knows a little bit about law can understand that only lawyers wear neck bands. If she would’ve impersonated a lawyer, she would have come to court wearing the band but she didn’t. No one in Indore district court is ready to take her case. Lawyers are under pressure,” said a lawyer privy to the matter.

A senior lawyer well-acquainted with the activities of the bar association claimed that no such video of the court proceedings was found in Sonu’s phone.

“Even if we consider that she recorded the proceedings then the judge was the only authority to take action against her. Those lawyers didn’t have the right or authority to harass her and get her arrested…if she would have been recording the court proceedings over the last five months then she would have definitely been noticed by the judges,” said a lawyer who was in the Indore court on January 28.

Chief Justice of India DY Chandrachud had noted last year that such recordings are no big deal in an open court.

Meanwhile, Sonu’s elder brother Iqbal Mansuri has alleged that “lawyers are afraid to appear for her bail plea in court”.

Newslaundry tried to speak to the lawyers who were allegedly threatened to not fight the case, but they refused to comment on the matter. A team of Delhi-based lawyers who went to Indore to bail Sonu out were also allegedly threatened and couldn’t appear in court.

Amit Srivastav, who led the team of Delhi-based lawyers, said, “We realised it was not safe to stay further in Indore and returned to Delhi. We are now going to file a petition for her bail in special circumstances and will also appeal to shift the case to another state.”

Asked about the alleged denial of protection to Sonu’s lawyers, MG Road police station assistant sub inspector LS Jamod hung up the phone after telling Newslaundry, “We gave them everything.” Reached for comment again over other allegations, Jamod said he could not respond.

The lawyers involved and ‘lawlessness’ in court

The lawyer quoted above alleged that the attack on Sonu was linked to anger among lawyers affiliated to Hindutva groups over the case against Bajrang Dal leader Tanu Sharma. Sharma was among four persons who were arrested for allegedly objectionable remarks against Prophet Mohammad during a protest against Pathaan on January 25 in Indore. 

As their bail petition came up for hearing on January 27 and January 28, it was Supreme Court lawyer Ehtesham Hashmi who appeared to oppose the application on behalf of the complainant, Mufti Sabir Ali. Hashmi had last year secured bail for a bangle seller who was thrashed by Hindutva activists for allegedly hiding his Muslim identity. That case had courted controversy with even Madhya Pradesh home minister Narottam Mishra alleging that the man had Pakistan links on social media.

Sharma, meanwhile, was being represented by a battery of lawyers, including Anil Naidu, Surendra Singh Alawa, Govind Singh Bais, Shubham Solanki and Amit Pande, among others. Most of them are affiliated to the RSS. 

“Hashmi was not in their good books as last year he secured bail for the Muslim bangle seller…they often used to say within their circles that Hashmi is a PFI agent...the next day, on January 28, around 300 lawyers gathered inside the court to lead an attack on Hashmi. They wanted to set an example so that no lawyer would dare to fight such cases…Sharma got bail…Hashmi stepped out under police protection. That intern also stepped out at the same time and this was observed by Sharma’s lawyers. They thought she was linked to Hashmi. While Hashmi stepped out of court, that intern was caught by the lawyers…after making a video, they circulated it in WhatsApp groups to shame her…police blindly trusted them and arrested her without any inquiry,” said a lawyer who did not wish to be named.

The FIR claims that Sonu admitted that she monitors the proceedings of all cases linked to communal incidents and shares the details with Noor Jahan Khan, PFI and the Peace Party. It claims that she has also agreed that she was video-recording the proceedings on the instructions of her senior to help Hashmi. 

Naidu said, “This girl was seen with Hashmi who often fights controversial cases in the courtroom and was making a video of the entire proceeding. She was running around Hashmi so we thought of her as his junior. It was a sensitive case and she was recording that’s why we filed the FIR.”

He said that “we took her to the bar office and interrogated her”. “She admitted that she had been given money by Noor Jahan to shoot the video of the proceedings to pass it on to PFI. This was not her first case of recording; she has been videographing all cases related to Hindu-Muslims.”

Asked why he or his team members didn’t inform the judge, Naidu said, “We  filed the FIR and later approached the additional district to take action over contempt of court…so that no junior should repeat the same mistake again.”

Hashmi, meanwhile, told Newslaundry that he was threatened inside the court on January 27 “but I didn’t give much importance to  threats and continued with the argument”. “Next day, the court was packed with lawyers who had come in support of Tanu Sharma. Despite repeated orders of the judge to leave the court, they didn’t step out. I was alerted in advance by my sources that I might be attacked and had requested for police security. Police escorted me outside the court…I am thankful to Indore police.”

Notably, after the hearing on January 27, Mustafa Badshah, one of the associates of the complainant in the case against Tanu Sharma, was also allegedly assaulted by the lawyers on court premises. “They were not lawyers but goons in black coats…somehow I managed to run and almost held a policeman and requested him to save me. Two more police personnel came and escorted me out of court.”

Hashmi also sent a defamation notice to Hindi daily Dainik Bhaskar. “They ran a totally fake story by indirect reference to me. How can they run news without verifying it? It was not possible for her to capture videos of the proceedings, and there is nothing secret in open court. They have targeted her because she is a Muslim. If they spotted her recording in court, then they should have informed the judge about it immediately. But instead they heckled her, dragged her to the bar office, where she was harassed and searched publicly. Who gave them the authority to act in such a way?”

Noor Jahan said, “This whole story of Sonu recording the proceedings and passing it on to PFI or to anyone else is totally fake. They even accused her of taking money for passing on information, which is a lie…I instructed Sonu to take money from one of my clients to complete legal formalities as I was not able to come to court that day. I even have evidence to prove it. In order to target me, they targeted my intern.”

“Everybody knew that Sonu was a Muslim and worked under Noor Jahan. She was targeted just because of her identity. Without verifying, news organisations reported her as a PFI agent. We want the police to investigate the matter seriously because till now everything has happened with biases,” said Srivastav.

Dr AK Chauhan, principal of the Government Law College in Dewas, said Sonu is “a good student”. “We don’t know much about the case and its authenticity, but as a student we don’t have any problem with her.”

Update at 2.53 pm, Feb 9: Hashmi died after a cardiac arrest in Delhi on Thursday morning.

Update at 1.46 pm, March 22: Sonu was granted bail on March 22 by the Supreme Court. Her petition, filed by lawyer Amit Srivastav, was argued by senior advocate Dushyant Dave.