"Fishing in troubled waters:" Supreme Court denies bail to fisherman booked under UAPA, NDPS Act for smuggling narcotics from Pakistan

The Supreme Court last week refused to grant bail to a Gujarat-based man booked under Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA) and Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act (NDPS Act) after he allegedly attempted to smuggle narcotic substances from Pakistan [Ramjhan Palani vs National Investigation Agency].A Bench of Chief Justice of India NV Ramana and Justices Surya Kant and Hima Kohli observed that the petitioner-fisherman seems to have been caught up in his own net."The petitioner would be entitled to justify his presence in the fishing boat, at the scene of crime which is sought to be described as a sheer coincidence during the trial. The explanation offered by the petitioner of having responded to the call 'Mohammed-Mohammed-Ramzan-Ramzan', would also be available to him at that stage. But at the threshold, this appears to be a case where he has been fishing in troubled waters and as per the NIA, has got caught in his own net," the order said.The Bench took note of the fact that, as per records, the chargesheet was filed by the National Investigation Agency (NIA) on December 18, 2020, and nine Pakistanis involved were still absconding even as further investigation is on."The petitioner has been chargesheeted for a serious offence where the minimum punishment prescribed is of ten years. We are, therefore, not inclined to exercise our discretion in favour of the petitioner by interfering with the impugned order, at present," the Bench stated..The Court was hearing a plea filed by accused Ramjhan Palani against an order of Gujarat High Court denying him bail. The High Court had upheld the special court order rejecting Palani's bail plea. Palani, was arrested by the Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI) on May 21, 2019. The case was later on taken over by the NIA.As per the prosecution case, on the relevant day, the DRI along with the Indian Coast Guard had intercepted a Pakistani ship, and after interrogating the captain of the ship it was learnt that they were in Indian territorial waters to dump a consignment of narcotics substances.Based on the information, 236.622 kgs of heroin packed in 211 packets was recovered from the water along with a satellite phone. The captain of the ship had stated that after dumping the consignment at a particular position, he was to say "Mohammad" on the VHF channel (ship to ship communication) to which the Indian counterpart was to respond with "Ramzan."Using this code language, the authorities transmitted the information saying "Mohammad Ramzan Ramzan" on the VHF channel to which the applicant, whose ship was nearby the spot from where the consignment was seized, responded saying "Ramzan ha bolo" and was accordingly picked up.Ramjhan argued that he was the victim of "unhappy incidents of being at the wrong place at wrong time." He argued that he had no antecedents, and the authorities did not arrest the 12 crew members on his ship but chose to arrest him alone.The prosecution contested Ramjhan's appeal pointing out that serious offences have been invoked against Ramjhan and he should not be granted bail..The apex court concluded that there was "prima facie" sufficient material on record to deny him bail.Senior Advocate R Basant appeared for the petitioner. .[Read Order]