Supreme Court Rejects NIA's Challenge To HC Order Granting Bail To Businessman In UAPA Case For Allegedly Funding Maoists

The Supreme Court on Friday (May 10) upheld the decision of the Jharkhand High Court granting bail to a construction firm partner who was booked by the National Investigation Agency (NIA) under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act for allegedly funding banned organization CPI (Maoist).

The bench comprising Justices PS Narasimha and Aravind Kumar said that the interference wasn't warranted with the decision of the High Court granting bail to the accused. However, liberty was granted to the prosecution (NIA) to seek cancellation of bail of the accused if any of the bail conditions is misused by him.

Last year, the NIA attached 152 bank accounts special term deposit receipts, and a mutual fund account containing more than Rs 20 crore belonging to a firm and its different partners under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act.

It was alleged by the NIA that the appellant/Mrityunjay Kumar Singh alias Sonu Singh had a close nexus with top CPI(Maoist) cadres and provided cash to CPI(Maoist), for furtherance of Maoist activities.

It was also alleged by the NIA that the appellant was instrumental in channelizing the illegal money of the terror outfit from one account of the firm to several accounts of other persons thereby creating multiple sources to hide the original source of money.

However, an explanation was provided by the appellant as regards the recovery of the huge amount of money from the house of the appellant. The appellant stated that he runs a road construction company and that the infusion of capital into the business would not lead to a conclusion that terror funds were being channelized by the appellant.

The High Court granted bail to the appellant after coming to the conclusion that a prima facie case under Section 43-D (5) of the UAP Act was not made out against the appellant.

Counsels For Petitioner(s) Mr. K M Nataraj, A.S.G. Mr. Shailesh Madiyal, Adv. Mr. B K Satija, Adv. Mr. Vinayak Sharma, Adv. Ms. Aarushi Singh, Adv. Mr. Suyash Pande, Adv. Ms. Deepabali Datta, Adv. Mr. Arvind Kumar Sharma, AOR

Counsels For Respondent(s) Mr. Siddharth Luthra, Sr. Adv. Mr. Syed Kamran Ali, Adv. Mr. Arjun Verma, Adv. Mr. Indrajit Sinha, Adv. Ms. Anusuya Sadhu Sinha, Adv. Mr. Ayush Anand, Adv. Mr. Sarthak Karol, Adv. Mr. Siddharth Naidu, Adv. M/S. KSN & Co., AOR

Case Title: UNION OF INDIA Versus MRITYUNJAY KUMAR SINGH @ MRITYUNJAY @ SONU SINGH, Diary No. 27308-2023

Citation : 2024 LiveLaw (SC) 367

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