Collective interest of community outweighs right of personal liberty of Stan Swamy: Special NIA Court while rejecting bail to Swamy [Read Order]

Collective interest of community will outweigh the right of personal liberty, the Special Court observed on Monday in its order refusing to grant bail to Stan Swamy, accused in the 2018 Bhima Koregaon violence.

. In the order a copy of which became available on Tuesday, Additional Sessions Judge DE Kothalikar said that factors like old age and sickness will not go in favour of Swamy for his release on bail considering that there was prima facie case against him for hatching conspiracy to overthrow democracy.

. "If seriousness of the allegations made against the applicant are considered in proper perspective, in that case there will be no hesitation to conclude that the collective interest of the community would outweigh the right of personal liberty of the applicant and as such the old age and or alleged sickness, of the applicant would not go in his favour, so that the discretion to release the applicant can be exercised in his favour," the order said. . The Court said that the evidence gathered by the National Investigation Agency (NIA) prima facie indicated that Swamy along with members of the banned organisation, Communist Party of India (Maoist) had hatched a serious conspiracy to create unrest in the entire country and to overpower the government, politically and by using muscle power.

. "The material placed on record thus prima facie denote that the applicant was not only the member of banned organisation CPI (Maoist) but he was carrying out activities further in the objective of the organisation which is nothing but to overthrow the democracy of the nation," it added.

. The court was shown a letter by NIA which stated "Central Committee to delegate more revolutionary members from the struggling areas to strengthen the PR."

The court said that as per the letter, there is substance in the argument by NIA that everything was done by Swamy and the co-accused secretively.

. The Court also noted that the NIA produced material collected during investigation which showed that Swamy received Rs. 8 lakh for furtherance of CPI (Maoist) activities.

"The references made in the aforementioned letters to the members being Comrade goes to suggest that there is force in the submissions made by the learned SPP that the word Comrade was being used while addressing to the member of the CPI (M)," the order said.

. The order further stated that there was an exchange of 140 emails between Swamy and other co-accused which suggested that Swamy was in touch with the co-accused. The court did not find merit in the argument that Swamy need not be detained in jail only for being a member of a banned organisation.

. The Court opined that the mere fact that Swamy was not present in Pune at the time of the Elgar Parishad event which triggered the violence and that he was not named in the FIR would not prove useful for his defence.

. "Considering the nature of allegations made against the applicant that he was the active member of the Terrorist Organisation, the aforementioned facts cannot be said to be sufficient to tilt the discretion in favour of the applicant." the Court stated.

. The Court, therefore, concluded that there was sufficient material available against Swamy and other co-accused and reasonable grounds for believing the accusation under provisions of the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act are true.

Further considering the express bar on bail under Section 43(5) of the UAPA, the Court held that Swamy cannot be released on bail.

. [Read Order]

Collective interest of community outweighs right of personal liberty of Stan Swamy: Special NIA Court while rejecting bail to Swamy [Read Order]

Neha Joshi

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