Sonu Punjaban freed of charges of running sex racket, MCOCA

New Delhi: A Delhi court has acquitted Sonu Punjaban, accused of running a sex racket and charged under stringent provisions of the Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act (MCOCA).

Additional Sessions Judge Gulshan Kumar freed accused Geeta Arora alias Sonu Punjaban of the charges of MCOCA due to lack of evidence.

The court said that the police has failed to produce concrete evidence against the 33-year-old accused.

Delhi Police in April 2011 had slapped the stringent MCOCA on Punjaban for allegedly running an organised sex racket in the capital and nearby cities in 2011, besides being involved in a murder case.

Police had arrested Punjaban from south Delhi's Mehrauli area on April 1, 2011.

It had told the court that they received a tip off that the accused was present at her house and her associate was alluring the customers on road.

The police accordingly led a trap and deployed one of its officers as decoy customer and struck a deal with tout Raju Sharma and Punjaban for two girls for Rs 7,000 each.

The police had said that the raiding party had arrested Punjaban along with four call girls, her tout Sharma and three men.

"Accused Punjaban and her associates have no legal source of income even though they are accumulating a large wealth. She is a habitual criminal and is continuously indulging in these activities for pecuniary gains as she has no fear of law in her mind."

"The existing legal penal and procedural laws and adjudicatory system has become rather inadequate to curb or control menace of her illegal activities in society. Therefore, there is need to curb her criminal activities in order to keep peace and tranquillity in society through more powerful and deterrent law. The involvement as mentioned above being the activities of this syndicate within the scope and objects for which MCOCA was enacted," the police had said in the FIR.

"She decided to enter the flesh trade to support her lavish lifestyle. Initially she worked alone but later on, as more high profile clients added to her list, she formed a group of aspiring models and actresses who would often get entrapped in her net," the official had then alleged.

The police had alleged that she was involved in several other cases including immoral traffic and murder.