The Karnataka High Court rejected a petition filed by the accused in the RSS worker Rudresh R murder case, seeking their discharge from the case.
The accused - Azim Sharief, Wasim Ahmed, Irfan Pasha, Mohammed Sadiq and Mohammed Majid Ullah - had challenged the National Investigation Agency special court's dismissal of their discharge application.
They had filed an appeal seeking release from the charges framed against them.
The counsel for the accused has claimed that the alleged act (murder) does not call for invoking provisions of the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, 1967. He also claimed that the action against them had been politically motivated.
Special Public Prosecutor P Prasanna Kumar had earlier argued that provisions of Section 15 of the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act lists murder as part of a terrorist activity.
A division bench comprising Justice B S Patil and Justice K S Mudagal rejected the plea on the ground that dismissal of a discharge petition by the NIA court cannot be challenged in the high court, according to Section 21 of the NIA Act, 2008. The accused were arrested on November 2016 for hacking Rudresh to death in broad daylight near Shivajinagar.
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