[Bhima Koregaon] Bombay High Court seeks assistance of Attorney General KK Venugopal in UAPA challenge

The Bombay High Court on Wednesday sought the assistance of Attorney General for India KK Venugopal in a plea filed by Bhima Koregaon accused Anand Teltumbde challenging provisions of the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA)..The writ petition filed through advocate Devyani Kulkarni has challenged bail provisions under the UAPA and misuse of the term "front organisation" by the National Investigation Agency (NIA)..Senior Advocate Mihir Desai pointed out that neither the UAPA nor any Rules defined what a 'front organisation' was. He submitted that the only way an organisation could be declared "banned" was after the Central government notified the same or added it under the Schedule of the UAPA..After hearing the arguments for a short while, the Bench of Justices SB Shukre and GA Sanap issued notice to the Attorney General and asked him to assist the court and posted the case for final disposal after four weeks. .Teltumbde's contention was that the First Schedule of the UAPA not only included individual organisations, but also all their formations and front organisations. The definition of "front organisation" was very broad and misused by the NIA, the petition stated.He also pointed out that the NIA's submission was that certain organisations which are fronts for banned organisations were also banned. However, this was not a decision of the Central government, but was taken by an individual officer of NIA..Apart from this, Teltumbde challenged the bail provisions under Section 43D of the UAPA. He stated that Section 43D creates an insurmountable hurdle for any accused to be granted bail. By virtue of the provision, bail is denied to the accused for many years, at times till the end of the trial, the plea stated.He submitted that even for cases under the UAPA, bail provisions needed to be seen in the context of the Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC), which does not prescribe any condition concerning the court having to come to a prima facie conclusion about guilt or innocence of the accused while granting bail..In this backdrop, Teltumbde also sought quashing of the order of the Special NIA Court rejecting his bail.The following grounds were raised in the plea:That chargesheet runs into thousands of pages and NIA admittedly intends to examine more than 200 witnesses; due to this it would take years to complete the trial and that would mean continued incarceration for years;That object of bail is to secure attendance of accused at the trial, bail should not be withheld as a punishment.