JAFFAR SATHIQ @BABU Vs. STATE

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This Full Bench has been constituted to decide the following questions formulated by A.D. Jagadish Chandira, J., vide order dtd. 16/12/2020, passed in Jaffar Sathiq @ Babu v. the State Crl.M.P. No. 13123 of 2020:

(2.) The case before A.D. Jagadish Chandira, J. arose out of the dismissal of an application for bail for offences under Ss. 447, 448, 294(b), 307, 506(II) and 120-B, IPC and Ss. 15, 16 and 18 of the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (for short "the UAPA"). Although the accused were released on statutory bail, it was brought to the notice of the learned Judge that by an order dtd. 13/5/2020 passed in Crl.R.C. No. 18 of 2020, P. Rajamanickam, J. had opined that a revision under Sec. 397 Cr.P.C. against an order of the Sessions Court extending the remand of an accused arrayed for offences under the U.A.P. Act, 1967, was not maintainable. P. Rajamanickam, J. concluded that since the UAPA was a scheduled enactment under the National Investigation Agency Act, 2008 (for short "the NIA Act, 2008") the mandate of Sec. 22(3) required that the procedure contemplated in Chapter IV of the said Act must apply. Consequently, the learned Judge concluded that the appropriate course was to file an appeal under Sec. 21 of the NIA Act, 2008, which would be heard by a Division Bench of this Court.

(3.) It was also brought to the notice of A.D. Jagadish Chandira, J. that another learned single Judge (M.V. Muralidaran, J.) had taken a different view in Abdulla v. State Crl.R.C. No. 223 of 2017 vide order dtd. 28/4/2018. The case of Abdulla (supra) arose out of the dismissal of an application for discharge by the Special Court for Bomb Blast and NIA Cases. It was observed that a Division Bench of this Court had, vide order dtd. 1/9/2015 passed in Crl. Appeal Nos. 243, 340 and 524 of 2015, observed that once the cases were not investigated by the NIA, the special procedure set out in the NIA Act, 2008, would not apply, and that the trial would proceed in accordance with the provisions of the Cr.P.C. Sustenance was also drawn from a Full Bench judgment of the Patna High Court in Bahadur Kora v. State of Bihar (2015) 2 MWN (Cri) 305 (FB) (Pat.). On the strength of the aforesaid decisions, M.V. Muralidaran, J. concluded that the entire proceedings before the Special Court were without jurisdiction, with the result that the order of discharge was amenable to revision under Sec. 397 Cr.P.C. before a single Judge of the High Court.