Supreme Court Refuses To Cancel Bail Of Man Facing UAPA Trial Over Alleged Radicalisation Towards ISIS

The Supreme Court today refused to cancel bail granted to a man booked under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, 1967 over alleged radicalization towards banned terrorist organization-ISIS.

A bench of Justices Surya Kant and N Kotiswar Singh passed the order, considering that the trial was likely to take "reasonable" time to conclude and there was no instance of misuse of the bail concession granted by the High Court.

"Prosecution proposes to examine more than 160 witnesses, out of whom 44 have been examined. Conclusion of trial will take some reasonable time. Respondent was released on bail after spending about 3 yrs in custody as undertrial...There is no instance to infer misuse of concession of bail so far, as he is regularly appearing before Trial Court and has not made any attempt to obstruct ongoing trial. We see no reason to cancel the bail granted to respondent", Justice Kant dictated.

Be that as it may, finding force in certain submissions made by Additional Solicitor General Aishwarya Bhati (for NIA), the Court directed that the accused Ammar Abdul Rahiman shall not travel abroad without prior permission of the High Court.

"However, the ASG appears to be justified in urging that respondent should not be allowed to go abroad during pendency of trial. It is directed that respondent shall not travel abroad unless express prior permission is granted by High Court."

During the hearing, ASG Bhati (for NIA) submitted that the respondent was participating in the trial but a condition may be imposed on him that he would not go out of the country while the same is going on. She raised a second request with regard to expunging of certain observations made in the impugned High Court order, saying that they seemed to be making the offense look diluted. "We don't want people who are influenced and sympathizers to that ideology also to be let free easily", the ASG urged.

Accordingly, besides subjecting the respondent's foreign travel to prior permission from the High Court, the bench added, "the observations made by High Court touching merits of the allegations are limited for bail purpose and shall not have bearing on trial".

Background

The matter arose out of a Delhi High Court order of May 6, 2024, which granted bail to the respondent-accused. The respondent was arrested by the NIA in August 2021 and charged under Section 120B IPC read with Sections 2(o), 13, 38 and 39 of UAPA.

As per allegations, the respondent was highly radicalized towards ISIS and entered into criminal conspiracy with known and unknown ISIS members for undertaking “Hijrah” to Jammu and Kashmir and other ISIS controlled territory to join (ISIS) for establishment of Caliphate and to carry out terrorist activities in India. It was the NIA's case that a scrutiny of his mobile phone revealed that he had downloaded videos related to ISIS and brutal killings from Instagram using screen recorder option.

According to the agency, the respondent's mobile phone also contained photographs of Osama-Bin-Laden, Jihad promotion, ISIS flags etc, which established his radical mindset and association with ISIS.

Granting bail to the respondent, the High Court said that merely because his mobile phone was found to be carrying incriminating material like “photographs of terrorist Osama Bin Laden, Jihad Promotion and ISIS flags” and he was accessing lectures of “hard-liner or Muslim preachers” was not enough to brand him as a member of a banned terrorist organization like ISIS.

The High Court further opined that such incriminating material, in today's electronic era, is freely available on the internet and merely accessing and downloading it would not be sufficient to hold that the accused had associated himself with ISIS.

“Merely because the mobile device of the appellant was found carrying incriminating material including photographs of terrorist Osama bin Laden, Jihad Promotion, ISIS flags etc. and he was also accessing lectures of hard-liner/Muslim preachers would not be enough to brand him as a member of such terrorist organization, much less his being acting in furtherance of its cause...Though such act may give us some insight about his mindset but when we talk about a penal provision which, in essence, takes away the liberty of anyone and where even grant of bail becomes a sort of exception, the prosecution needs to have some extra ammunition in the shape of decipherable and tangible material,” the High Court stated.

Case Title: NATIONAL INVESTIGATION AGENCY Versus AMMAR ABDUL RAHIMAN, SLP(Crl) No. 12883/2024 

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