Gujarat High Court quashes conviction, life term and ₹5 crore fine imposed on businessman booked for hoax flight hijack letter

The Gujarat High Court on Tuesday quashed the conviction, life imprisonment sentence and a fine of ₹5 crore imposed on a businessman who was accused of issuing a flight hijack threat which later turned out to be a hoax [Birju Salla @ Amar Soni v. State of Gujarat]..The Court was hearing an appeal filed by one Birju Salla alias Amar Soni (appellant) challenging his conviction and sentence under the Anti-Hijacking Act for leaving a 'hijack' threat note inside the lavatory of an aircraft.A bench of Justices AS Supehia and MR Mengdey said that prosecution failed to establish that the appellant had made the threat-note or planted it in the lavatory of the aircraft. "The overall appreciation of the evidence reveals that the same does not establish the guilt of the accused beyond reasonable doubt. The evidence does not unequivocally nails the appellant in a serious offence of hijacking," the Court said.The appellant cannot be convicted for his demeanor of asking or requesting the crew members for using the lavatory of the aircraft, and also for inquiring as to whether the aircraft will go to Delhi or not, the Court said."The crew members have also admitted that there were other passengers in the business class. These witnesses have also not denied the using of lavatory by other passengers. They have not seen the accused planting the Note in the lavatory. As per the deposition of PW-22,he had identified 4-5 accused. The crew members have also admitted that there were other passengers in the business class," the Court noted.Thus, it concluded that prosecution was required to establish the link between the threat-note and the appellant.The evidence should have been immaculate character keeping in mind the stringent punishment prescribed for the offence of hijacking under the Act, it added while setting aside the conviction and sentence handed down by the special NIA court.By way of background, the note was found in the lavatory of a Delhi-bound Jet Airways flight on October 30, 2017. It stated in Urdu that the flight must not land in Delhi, but was to be taken directly to 'Pakistan-Occupied-Kashmir' (PoK). It threatened that if the flight landed anywhere other than PoK, then 12 men on board the flight would kill the passengers.The threat later turned out to be a hoax.He was later convicted under the Anti-Hijacking Act, 2016 by a special court and sentenced to imprisonment for life besides fine of ₹5 crore. The High Court conceded that the communication of 'intention' to inflict harm or loss on a person which may diminish his/her freedom to act voluntarily, could be termed as a "credible threat.".A threat to an individual who is onboard a flight at a high altitude will have an 'alarming and horrifying' effect, the judges said, adding that the credibility of the threat at that moment is impossible to assess.The Bench further held that the effect of a threat cannot diminish later just because it turned out to be a hoax."Merely, because a threat is subsequently found to be a hoax, the same cannot wipe out its effect at the time when such threat was issued or as in the present case, the aspect of threat was detected from the Note which was found from the lavatory of the aircraft. Threat is entirely subjective, metaphysically incongruous and statutorily undefined.".The Court also refused to accept the contention of the appellant that the flight was not actually hijacked, and thus, merely issuing a threat-note would not amount to hijacking the aircraft physically. Referring to the definition of 'hijack' under the Anti-Hijack Act, 2016, the Court noted,"For satisfying these ingredients, the seizure or control of an aircraft may not be actual or physical and equally, the threat may not be visible. The expression 'any form of intimidation' used in the Act, acquires significance in the present case. There may not be actual seizure or control of the aircraft by displaying physical means from an individual, but such seizure/control can also be the result of a threat originating in abstract form from any physical entity.".The Bench noted that after the note was found, crew members and pilots immediately contacted the Air Traffic Controller at Ahmedabad and made an emergency landing in the city for security reasons.The evidence indicated that all concerned security agencies were informed of the threat and were ready at the ground level at Ahmedabad."Thus, in the given circumstances which ensued after the detection of the threat-note, it cannot be perceived that the threat contained in the threat-note was “not credible”," the judgment stated..However, the Bench found that the prosecution failed to establish that the appellant had made the threat-note or planted it in the lavatory of the aircraft and, therefore, quashed the conviction and sentence of the appellant..Senior Advocates Yogesh Lakhani and Vikram Chaudhari along with Advocates Hardik P Modh, Rishi Segal, Amit Laddha and Shweta Segal appeared for the appellant.Additional Public Prosecutor Vrunda C Shah represented the State.Additional Solicitor General Devang Vyas along with Advocate Kshitij Amin represented the NIA..[Read Judgment]