The Telangana High Court recently dismissed a criminal appeal filed by three people accused in an Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA) case of 2022, who sought to challenge the validity of their prosecution sanction order at the pre-trial stage.
The judgment, dated September 22, delivered by Justice K Lakshman and B R Madhusudhan Rao, upheld the decision of the IV Additional Metropolitan Sessions Judge cum Special NIA court and ruled that the question of the sanction’s validity cannot be considered at the stage of framing charges, but must be reserved for the trial stage.
The sanction order for prosecution was issued by the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) on December 28,2022, following the recommendations of the independent authority as mandated by the law.
The case stems from an FIR registered by the Nizamabad police on July 4, 2022, under various sections of the Indian Penal Code and Section 13(1)(b) of the UAPA. The case was then transferred to the National Investigation Agency (NIA), Hyderabad.
The NIA filed a chargesheet against 11 accused, including the appellants: karate master Abdul Quadar, 52; Shaik Shadullah, 37; and Mohd Imran, 23, for offenses under strict sections of the UAPA.
Petitioners claim allegations vague and general
The counsel for the petitioners, Shaik Muhammad Abed, claimed that the petitioners were falsely implicated in the crime in a “suo motu” case registered by the police, with vague and general allegations. The appellants argued that the sanction order dated December 28, 2022, was “bald and subjective” and that the sanctioning authority had not applied its mind.
“Sanctioning authority and recommendation authority passed a mechanical order which amounts to failure of justice,” they claimed.
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They further contended that “there is no whisper in the impugned sanction order when the matter was referred to the independent authority and when the independent authority has submitted that recommendation, which information is just and necessary in the order of such nature and contravention of these process vitiate the sanction, same cannot be cured at any stage”.
They sought to summon the entire sanction record and the independent review committee members to “test the veracity of the impugned sanction” before charges were framed.
The Special Public Prosecutor for NIA, P Vishnuvardhan Reddy, argued that the stage of examining the validity of the sanction is during the trial, “which cannot be examined at the stage of enquiry or pre-trial stage and the burden of proving valid sanction is always on the prosecution”. He called the contentions of the petitioners “misconceived and unfounded” allegations.
He further argued that the petitioners were attempting to mislead the court, creating doubt and delaying the framing of a charge, which would ultimately benefit them.
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‘Cogent reasons’, says Telangana High Court
The high court observed that the trial court had “rightly dismissed the application” by assigning “cogent reasons”. The judgment relied heavily on the precedent set by the Supreme Court in the case of Fuleshwar Gope Vs Union of India, which the high court directly cited.
“Independent review as well as application of mind or questions to be determined by way of evidence and as such should be raised at the stage of trial,” the bench observed.
The court held that the NIA forwarded the investigation report of the case along with the list of documents collected and witnesses examined during the course of investigation.
The court stated that “no interference is called for” with the trial court’s order, resulting in the dismissal of the appeal.
