Bengaluru Riots Case: Supreme Court Rejects Bail Plea Of Accused

The Supreme Court on Monday refused to interfere with the special leave petition filed by a bunch of accused in the Bengaluru Riots Case of 2020 assailing Karnataka High Court's order of upholding dismissal of bail applications by the Special Court.

The matter was listed before the bench of Justices Dinesh Maheshwari and Vikram Nath.

Appearing for the accused Mohammad Kaleem, Senior Advocate Siddharth Luthra had submitted that the appellant was a 68 year old engineer who had spent 14 months in custody. It was also Senior Counsel's contention that the appellant's name came up when the National Investigation Agency came into play and his name was not mentioned in the FIR. Luthra, while relying on the Top Court's judgment in Kartar Singh's case, further submitted that there were 154 witnesses and the Chargesheet was still pending.

Appearing for 5 accused(s) (Shaikh Muhammed Bilal, Syed Asif, Mohammed Atif, Naqeeb Pasha And Syed Ikramuddin), Advocate Gaurav Agrawal submitted that the investigation against the accused was complete and they were in custody for the last 16 months.

Considering the overall scenario, the bench however at this juncture, expressed its disinclination to interfere in the impugned order and dismissed the SLP.

Case Before Karnataka High Court

The accused(s) had approached the High Court challenging the order of special court, dismissing their bail applications on the ground that the allegations made against the accused are serious in nature and the overt acts committed by each of them prima facie indicate that they form terrorist acts as defined under Sections 15 and 20 of UAPA Act.

While dismissing the appeal filed by a bunch of accused seeking bail in the Bengaluru Riots case of 2020, the bench of Justice Aravind Kumar and Justice Pradeep Singh Yerur had observed that if an act is likely to strike terror, then the absence of an intent to strike terror will not make the invocation of Section 15 of the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act unjustifiable.

"It would emerge from sub-section (1) of Section 15 that even if the act is "likely to strike terror", the absence of "ïntent to strike terror" will not by itself make the invocation of Section 15 unjustified," High Court had said.

It added, "As such the accused cannot limit his arguments to say that he or she lacked the necessary intent to strike terror. In other words, the accused will have to go one step further and demonstrate that his actions, even if lacking any intent, does not carry any likelihood of striking terror in the minds of the people."

The Bench had also observed that, "The role of accused persons - appellants has been established through prosecution witnesses, statements of protected witnesses, documentary/electronic evidence and CDRs of mobile numbers used by the accused during the relevant point of time. Appellants with a common intention were part of unlawful assembly and with a common object to commit a terrorist act, destruction of public and private properties had disobeyed the promulgation of the orders issued under Section 144 Cr.P.C. In fact, in furtherance of the common objective to cause harm and destruction to the police station, they have attacked the police personnel who were on duty at the relevant date, time and place of incident. As a part of the conspiracy that was hatched with an intention to strike terror and cause fear in the mind of the public, the appellants have acted accordingly."

Background

According to the police, on August 11 a mob of around 300 people gathered near D.J. Halli Police Station, protesting against an allegedly derogatory comment on Prophet Mohammed, posted by one P. Naveen on his Facebook page. An FIR was lodged on the basis of a complaint submitted by one Firdous Pasha, for offenses under Section 295-A and 153 of the Indian Penal Code.

Despite the registration of the FIR and the best efforts of the police to pacify the crowd, the mob that had gathered outside the Police Station refused to disperse and only increased in numbers. They then proceeded to gather outside the residence of Akhanda Srinivasa Murthy, who is an MLA, from Pulikeshi Nagar constituency and caused extensive damage to his house and property.

The mob was then joined by a large number of miscreants from adjoining areas and they began to set fire to police vehicles and attacked police personnel of D.J. Halli and K.G. Halli Police Stations, by throwing stones at the building and attacking them with deadly weapons. Later, the mob resorted to arson and set fire to the basement of the D.J. Halli Police Station building and destroyed Government properties located within the premises of the Police Station.

More than 80 police personnel were injured in the violence. The mob also burnt private vehicles and property, caused extensive damage to buildings of private and commercial establishments, and also looted them. A total of 64 criminal cases have been registered so far and investigation is under process. Over 300 people have been arrested in the case.

Case Title: Mohammad Kaleem Ahmad v National Investigation Agency and connected pleas

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