No appeal against order passed under Section 20 of NIA Act, rules HC

An appeal filed in the high court under section 21 of the National Investigation Agency Act, 2018, will be maintainable only if it’s against the special court’s order in a bail matter, the High Court of Karnataka has said.

A three-judge bench passed the ruling while dismissing the appeal filed by four people accused of killing RSS worker R Rudresh on Kamaraj Road, central Bengaluru, on October 16, 2016.

No appeal shall lie under section 21 of the NIA Act against an order passed under section 20 of the same act on the transfer of the case, the bench of Chief Justice Ritu Raj Awasthi and Justices B Veerappa and P Krishna Bhat held.

The accused had filed an Interlocutory Application (IA) in the NIA special court under section 20 of the NIA Act, seeking the transfer of the case to a regular sessions court on the grounds that the sanction for prosecution given under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act was defective. They filed the appeal in the high court after the special court dismissed the IA.

The NIA argued that the appeal was not maintainable in terms of specific bar contained under section 21 (3) of the NIA Act. The matter was referred to a larger bench to decide the question of law.

Dismissing the appeal, the three-judge bench cited the apex court’s observations on the restricted scope of preferring an appeal from the orders passed by the special court at various stages.

The Supreme Court had also observed that the intention of the legislation is to complete the trial at a faster pace and that the NIA Act has drastically reduced the avenues for parties to approach the high court by way of appeals.

“In view of the law laid down by the Hon’ble Apex Court in the case of State of Andhra Pradesh v/s Mohd Hussain, we are of the considered view that no appeal shall lie to the High Court under Section 21 of the Act against the interlocutory order except in the case of grant of bail or refusal to grant bail. In the present case, the order impugned in the appeal is an interlocutory order rejecting the transfer application, and as such, the appeal preferred by the appellants is not maintainable,” the bench said.