System paralysed due to COVID, undertrials languishing in jails: Bombay High Court while hearing bail plea of man accused of joining ISIS

The trial court system has been affected due to COVID-19 pandemic as a result of which the accused are languishing in prisons, the Bombay High Court observed on Wednesday while reserving its order in the appeal challenging rejection of bail to a 33-year-old man accused of joining ISIS..A Bench of Justices SS Shinde and NJ Jamadar said that if an accused is in judicial, the perception is that trial will not commence at the earliest. "For 'n' numberof reasons, if the accused is in jail then the perception is that trial does not start for long. In some cases they (undertrials) have completed the 10 year sentence but even then trial had not yet started," the Bench said. .Justice Shinde added that due to the pandemic situation in the country, with courts also having limited functioning, the judicial system has been paralysed. "The system due to the pandemic is paralysed. Lawyers not being allowed to travel in the lifeline of the city - the local trains, pending cases are only rising. The cumulative effect is that accused are languishing in jail," Justice Shinde said. .The appellant in the case, Iqbal Ahmed Kabir Ahmed, was charged with various sections of the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA) and Explosive Substance Act for supposedly joining the banned organisation - ISIS.Prosecution's case was that Ahmed was a co-conspirator in the alleged plan to carry out an attack on the Aurangabad ATS Unit and was involved in the making of a low intensity Improvised Explosive Device (IED). .The prosecution relied on materials collected from the house of Ahmed during search and seizure that pointed out that his alleged connection with the ISIS. Senior Advocate Mihir Desai, appearing for Ahmed, refuted the allegations pointing out that there was nothing in the chargesheet which indicated that Ahmed was involved in the making of the IED. .He submitted that Ahmed had been arrested in August 2016 and primary chargesheet was filed by the Anti-Terrorist Squad Maharashtra in October 2016. Thereafter, the case was transferred to the National Investigation Agency (NIA) and they filed a supplementary chargesheet in 2019. The charges were framed in 2021. He submitted that Ahmed had already spent nearly 5 years in judicial custody already. .Justice Shinde queried how many witnesses would be examined and when the trial would commence. Special Public Prosecutor Aruna Pai, appearing for NIA, submitted that the recording of evidence would commence on July 20, 2021 and out of 150 witnesses, the Court would be examining only 75-80 witnesses.She submitted that the delay in commencement of trial was because of the accused in the case who had been filing multiple applications and not because of the prosecution. Opposing the appeal, she argued that the Court could always expedite the trial or pass an order directing day to day conduct of trial.Desai however retorted that with only 112 working days in the next 6 months "it was not possible for the trial to start despite the best efforts." .Disagreeing with Pai's submission seeking an order for day-to-day trial, Justice Shinde pointed out that the higher courts in the country had been expediting trials, but despite that the reality was that trials took long to get over.After hearing the parties at length, the Court reserved the appeal for orders.