Uttarakhand HC comes to aid of US woman serving jail term for entering India without visa

By PTI

NAINITAL: The Uttarakhand High Court has reduced the four-year jail term of a woman from the USA caught for coming to India without valid documents to eleven months in prison.

On a petition by US citizen Farida Malik challenging a lower court judgement sentencing her to four years in jail, a bench of Justice R C Khulbe on Wednesday reduced her imprisonment to eleven months in jail, already served by her.

The bench also asked authorities to let her go back to her country as she had already spent that period in prison.

The high court came to the woman’s rescue after her lawyer argued that the punishment given to her by the lower court was out of proportion to her crime.

It was further said the relations between India and the United States are cordial and no other crime has been committed by the woman during her stay in India.

The American woman was caught on the Indo-Nepal border during the checking of a bus by the Indian security personnel after she was found travelling without a valid visa.