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A woman who returned to India from B.C. after being convicted of forging her husband’s signature on her son’s passport application has been denied a chance to appeal her conviction and jail sentence from abroad.
Sapna Kapoor can’t come back to Canada to appeal because her conviction invalidated her visitor’s visa and made her inadmissible for entry in Canada, according to a B.C. Appeal Court ruling.
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She is unable to see her son in Canada, who was three when she left and is now seven.
She has only a faint hope of returning to Canada by being granted a temporary residence permit, which is “exceptional and highly discretionary,” according to the ruling.
After her short-lived marriage ended in acrimony, Kapoor, 44, was caught in 2017 trying to forge her ex-husband’s signature on a passport for their son, then two months old.
Passport officials didn’t process the application because the boy’s father had contacted them under an alert system to flag any attempts by her to apply for travel documents for her son, according to the B.C. Supreme Court judgment. Her ex-husband and son do not have the same last name.
She tried again unsuccessfully a couple of days later, and a few months later, she asked Indian immigration officials if they would allow her son to travel to India without a passport, according to that judgment.
Kapoor was convicted in January 2021 of two counts relating to the forgery. A month later travelled to India without her son, before her sentencing.
B.C. Supreme Court Judge Murray Blok ruled in November 2021 that she had “absconded from her trial,” contrary to the Criminal Code, to impede her trial or with the “intention of avoiding its consequences.” A month later, that court sentenced her in absentia to six months in jail and three years of probation.
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Three years later, she has asked the Appeal Court to permit her to appeal from outside Canada, despite not serving any of her sentence.
The prosecution asked for her appeal to be thrown out because Kapoor had “repudiated the jurisdiction” of the B.C. courts.
The Appeal Court decision, written by Justice Joyce DeWitt-Van Oosten with the concurrence of Justices Mary Newbury and Lauri Ann Fenlon, said the court has long held that appellants who repudiate the court’s jurisdiction or flout its orders shouldn’t have the right to appeal.
Because her conviction carries a maximum term of at least 10 years and therefore prevents her from legally returning to Canada, she argued in her appeal application that her return to Canada is beyond her control.
She did however receive help from prosecutors to apply for a temporary resident permit, including the drafting of a letter to immigration officials that stated she has an “urgent need” for a quick permit.
But Kapoor hasn’t applied because she thinks it will take too long, the ruling said.
The Appeal Court noted no matter how an appeal was decided, Kapoor would have “exclusive control” over whether or not she complies because she’s in India beyond the reach of Canadian courts.
If she got the conviction thrown out, she would still have to return for a retrial. If the sentence were reduced, it would be left unserved unless she returns, the judge ruled.
“I do not consider that scenario to be in the interests of justice,” ruled DeWitt-Van Oosten.
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