Supreme Court cancels bail granted to 8 ‘PFI members’ in UAPA case

Justice Trivedi added it cannot be denied that national security is of paramount importance and any terrorist act, violent or non-violent, is liable to be restricted.

The bench said that courts can interfere with orders of personal liberty if the same is perverse. The court directed that the trial be expedited and clarified that it had not said anything on the merits of the case.

The Supreme Court was hearing an appeal by the NIA against the high court’s October 19, 2023, order.

The agency said the accused had “conspired in committing terrorist acts, recruited members for furthering their extremist ideology and imparted training to commit terrorist activities, organised mass drills for displaying their might by gathering their members in combat uniforms, intending that the participants in such activity shall be trained to use criminal force for violence against other religious communities to spread fear or alarm or insecurity among members of other religions”.

It added that “the leaders/cadres of PFI had formed the Organisation only to achieve a dangerous goal of Vision India 2047′, that is to make this country ruled by Muslims as per Sharia law”.

The agency also said that “the high court while examining the evidence available on the record and appreciating the same in the context of the bar contemplated under section 46D(5) (of UAPA), has miserably failed to comprehend the…definition of terrorism contemplated under in section 15 of the UAP Act and more particularly the word ‘likely’ employed in it”.

Appearing for NIA, advocate Rajat Nair said that witness statements reveal how the accused conducted several training programmes in martial arts using weapons like knives, swords etc. He added that the statements also reveal the training given to the PFI cadre to throw beer bottles filled with water to hit targets and the speeches delivered by some of the accused for recruiting new youngsters from the Muslim community to PFI to spread its ideologies.

The NIA said, according to a witness, one of the accused while taking classes for the PFI cadre had indicated that if an opportunity comes in future, they will also join ISIS to take weapon training and to fight for it and later, come back and rejoin PFI when they have to fight against the Indian government to achieve their goal of establishing Sharia law in the country.

Stating that the law should not become a ruse for targeted harassment, the high court had said that the source of the reliable information on the basis of which the accused had been arrested is not seen in the FIR. It had further said that from the chargesheet and documents collected so far pursuant to the investigation, no document or statement of witnesses is obtained connecting the outfit with any terrorist act or a terrorist group “even though the materials will lead to an inference for describing PFI as an unlawful organisation which may become in future a terrorist organisation to cause potential threat to commit offences attracting the provisions of UAPA”.

The high court had added that “though the ultimate objective of PFI is stated to be, as seen from a document, *2047 Vision Document, there is nothing to connect the appellants to the said document”. It had further said that “when the organisation as such is only banned as an unlawful Association under Section 3 of UAPA, this Court cannot take a decision on the basis of any general allegations accusing PFI and its members and cadres without any material”.

The high court had disputed the use of the expression ‘preparation for a terrorist act’ as interpreted by NIA. Section 18 of the UAPA, 1967, makes any act preparatory to the commission of terrorist act punishable.

The high court had said that under the general penal law, preparation is not punishable barring a few exceptions. It had added that “to bring an act within the meaning of preparatory it must be proximate to the act which is intended to be committed out of that preparation. Any remote acts, from which it cannot be definitely concluded that it was for the preparation of the terrorist act, cannot be called as preparatory acts within the meaning of Section 18 of the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, 1967”.