Attack on security personnel in Gadchiroli: HC orders dropping of MCOCA charges against 3 accused, sets aside special court decision

Six persons were booked in 2019 for their alleged involvement in a blast at Gadchiroli, which killed 16, including 15 personnel of the Quick Response Team.

The accused were booked on charges, including murder and criminal conspiracy under the Indian Penal Code and the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act along with MCOCA.

A division bench of Justices Ajey S Gadkari and Shyam C Chandak passed a judgment in appeals by the three challenging the trial court orders.

The special court had stated that the MCOCA did not require previous chargesheets to be filed against them individually and considered cases filed against banned organisation CPI (Maoist), of which they are alleged to have been members.

Advocates Gaurav Bhawnani and Muskan Shaikh for appellants argued that in present case, the date of alleged commission of crime was May 1, 2019 and the offence was registered the next day with Purada Police Station, Gadchiroli.

They submitted that the competent authority, while granting prior approval to apply MCOCA provisions, had relied on two previous cases filed against the “organised crime syndicate of CPI (Maoist)” headed by co-accused Nirmala Uppuganti. However, they argued that cognisance of one of those two crimes was taken on May 30, 2019, which should have been taken prior to lodging of present case as per the Supreme Court judgement in Mahipal Singh case.

Therefore, the impugned orders of the trial court were “erroneous ”and should be set aside.

The bench observed that “it is thus clear that the principle of law enunciated by the Supreme Court in Mahipal Singh case has not been followed by the competent authority.”
The HC noted that the trial court did not consider the said procedural aspect and instead considered the applications for dropping charges on merits by dealing with evidence against the appellants.

It held, “Therefore we have no other option than to set aside the impugned prior approval dated February 7, 2020 and to hold that, the appellants cannot be prosecuted for the offence under Section 3 (punishment for organised crime) of the MCOCA”.