While granting bail to three accused persons booked under the provisions of the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, 1967, the Madhya Pradesh High Court has held that mere participation in seminars by itself cannot constitute an offence under bail-restricting sections of the Act.

The High Court was considering the criminal appeals filed under Section 21(4) of the National Investigating Agency Act, 2008, on behalf of three accused appellants seeking their enlargement on bail.

The Division Bench of Justice Vivek Agarwal and Justice Ratnesh Chandra Singh Bisen held, “In terms of the judgment of the Hon'ble Supreme Court in case of Vernon (supra), as reproduced above, there is no credible case of conspiracy to commit offences enumerated under Chapter IV and Chapter VI of the UAPA Act, 1967. Therefore, mere participation in seminars by itself, cannot constitute an offence under the bail, restricting Sections of the UAPA Act. We are of the considered opinion that bail can be granted to the appellants because admittedly the trial is going to take long time.”

Advocate Saket Anand represented the appellant while Advocate Deepesh Joshi represented the respondent NIA.

Arguments

It was the case of the appellants that no incriminating material except for photocopies of Islamic literature had been recovered from the rented house of two accused persons. As per the appellants, their association with the activities of the designated terrorist organisation was sought to be established through third party communications and actual involvement of the appellants in any terrorist act had not surfaced from these communications.

Reasoning

On a perusal of the record, the Bench noted the three admissions made by the counsel for the NIA, which included no recovery of any substantive material admissible in evidence on the memorandum under Section 27 of the Indian Evidence Act. Secondly, one of the accused persons, Mohd. Waseem, from whom the mobile phone was seized, had not been arrested based on any communication or interception of any message. Thirdly, only photocopies of certain material were seized.

“Thus, when they are tested on the touchstone of Section 47 of the UAPA Act, 1967, then Section 46 of the UAPA Act, 1967, talks of admissibility of the evidence collected through the interception of the communications”, it added.

Referring to the terrorist act as defined under Section 15 of the UAPA Act, 1967, the Bench held that none of the requirements of Section 15 was fulfilled. “As far as Section 13 is concerned, it deals with the punishment for unlawful activities, but that punishment can only be inflicted once the guilt is proved. That guilt is to be proved on the touchstone of the evidence”, the order read.

The Bench was of the view that mere participation in seminars by itself would not constitute an offence under the bail-restricting sections of the 1967 Act, with which the appellants were charged. Thus, the Bench set aside the impugned order and granted bail to the appellants by imposing certain conditions.

Cause Title: Sheikh Juned v. The National Investigation Agency (NIA) (Neutral Citation: 2026:MPHC-JBP:33049)

Appearance

Appellant: Advocate Sanjay Kumar Verma

Respondent: Advocates Deepesh Joshi, Qasim Ali

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Madhya Pradesh HCJustice Vivek AgarwalJustice Ratnesh Chandra Singh Bisen

Tulip Kanth

Assistant Editor

Tulip Kanth is an Assistant Editor at Verdictum having over 5 years of experience in the field of legal journalism and editing. She extensively covers judgments of the Supreme Court, High Courts as well as Tribunals. She has previously worked with a legal publishing website where she oversaw the work of other editors and has also created updates on notifications of different Government Ministries. She holds an English Honours Degree from SGTB Khalsa College, Delhi University and has completed her LLB course with specialisation in Corporate Law from Amity University.