"Sad State Of Affairs": Delhi Court Expresses Concern Over Invocation Of UAPA Merely Over Recovery Of Illegal Arms From Accused's House

Calling it a sad state of affairs, a Delhi Court has recently expressed concern over invocation of stringent provisions of Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act against an accused only for the reason of illegal recovery of arms from his house, thereby claiming him to be involved in terror activities.

Special NIA Judge Parveen Singh discharged one Adish Kumar Jain, booked under UAPA against whom it was alleged that he, along with co-accused Dinesh Garg, in active connivance with their associates in Saudi Arabia had illegally received, raised and collected terror funds and were engaged in gold smuggling activities.

On Court's query as to why Jain was arrayed as an accused in the case, it was submitted by the NIA that he would not have been made an accused but for the recovery of illegal arms from his house.

"This is a very surprising submission which has been made and it reveals a sad state of affairs where the high handedness of police officers makes a person suffers for the crime which he has not committed as just by the reason of recovery of illegal arms/ weapons from his house, the person has been arrested and charge-sheeted under the stringent provisions of UAPA and has been claimed to be involved in terror activities," the Court observed.

The Court further noted that there was no evidence at all against accused Adish Kumar Jain of either being involved in the conspiracy or otherwise being involved in any terrorist activities or activities related to terror funding.

The development came in a Chargesheet alleging that in 2017, co accused Namely Shaikh Abdul Naeem was arrested at Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh, for his involvement in raising funds from the main operatives of Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) based Pakistan for terrorist activities in India.

During investigation, it was revealed that co accused Bedar Bakht, Towseef Ahmad Malik @ Tipu, Mafooz Alam, Habib Ur Rehnam and Amzad @ Rehan @ Abdullah Rashid @ Abdul Aziz @ Wali had provided shelter, logistics, mobile phones to Shaikh Abdul Naeem, raised funds for him and also facilitated him in engaging fake identity.

It was further the case of prosecution that Abdul Samad, Dinesh Garg and Adish Kumar Jain were involved in receiving, collecting and delivering funds received from Saudi Arabia.

It was further alleged that accused Javed was involved in raising and sending funds amounting Rs.3.5 lacs for Naeem from Saudi Arabia through hawala network and on failing to deliver it to him, delivered it through accused Abdul Samad to his father accused Mohd. Imran.

During the search, illegally arms and ammunition had been seized from the residence of Jain which included one black colour King cobra Pistol, made in china by "NORINCO' along with one Magazine and ammunition. 

It was further submitted that Jain had supplied huge quantities of money to approver Abdul Samad acted as hawala operator for his associates in Saudi Arabia to transfer money from Saudi Arabia to India. Furthermore, it was added that same channel had been exploited to pump terror fund from Saudi Arabia to India to further the terror activities.

It was further submitted that the prosecution had established the connection of Jain and Dinesh Garg to terror funding when Abdul Samad tried to deliver funds to Naeem. 

Apart from discharging Adish Kumar Jain in the matter, the Court also discharged other co accused including the approver Abdul Samad, Dinesh Garg and Gul Nawaz.

However, charges under UAPA and IPC were framed against five accused persons namely Shaikh Abdul Naeem, Bedar Bakht @ Dhannu Raja, Towseef Ahmad Malik @ Tipu, Habib-ur-Rehman and Javed.

As per the allegations, the amount which was to be delivered to primary accused Shaikh Abdul Naeem was picked up by Abdul Samad from accused Dinesh Garg on the instructions of accused Gul Nawaz.

In this backdrop, the Court noted:

"Therefore, this being the case, accused Adish Kumar could not have been made an accused in this case unless it was shown that evidence which was collected for the hawala transactions of this accused, some of which are on record, reflected that he was engaged in receiving or disbursing terror funds to some module of a terrorist organization or on behalf of terrorist organization. However, there is not even an allegation of this kind against accused Adish Kumar Jain."

Regarding the involvement of primary accused Shaikh Abdul Naeem, the Court was of the view that prima facie it was established that he continued to be a member of LeT and was working for it to choose targets and recruit cadre.

While discharging Gul Nawaz and Dinesh Garg, the Court was of the view that no circumstance had emerged which could raise a grave suspicion of them being a part of the conspiracy wherein it was alleged that they were hawala operators and during their operation, they acted upon an instruction, which incidentally was meant to deliver money to a terrorist.

"I accordingly find that there is no evidence either in the form of a testimony or in the form of circumstances which would raise a grave suspicion of accused Gul Nawaz and accused Dinesh Garg of being involved in this conspiracy. Thus, I find that they are to be discharged for the offence punishable u/s 120B IPC and 17 UAPA, 18 UAPA, 18B UAPA, 19 UAPA, 20 UAPA, 21 UAPA, 38 UAPA, 39 UAPA and 40 UAPA," the Court observed. 

Advocate Ramakant Gaur appeared on behalf of accused jewellers urged that both the jewellers were falsely implicated in this case as there was no evidence regarding them being engaged in the act of receiving terror funds in the form of gold smuggling and facilitating hawala channels through which terror funds were delivered to other accused, which had been utilised by LeT.

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