SC quashes HC order discharging accused for alleged offences of sedition and UAPA

The top court said the revision petitions be decided and disposed of by a division bench of the high court at the earliest

The Supreme Court has set aside a Kerala High Court order discharging a man from offences under the provisions of the anti-terror law and sedition for allegedly having Maoist links.

A bench of Justices M R Shah and A S Bopanna allowed the appeal filed by the Kerala government and set aside the order passed by the High Court in September 2019.

The bench remanded the matter back to the High Court and asked it to decide the case afresh within six months in accordance with law and on merits.

The accused, Roopesh, was arrested in December 2015.

Senior advocate Maninder Singh, representing the Kerala government, relied upon Section 21 of the National Investigation Agency Act, 2008, to contend the order passed by the single judge of the High Court is unsustainable.

Agreeing to his submission, the bench said, “In view of Section 21(1) of the NIA Act, the revision application against the order passed by the special court refusing to discharge the accused ought to have been heard by the division bench as mandated under sub-section (2) of Section 21 of the NIA Act."

Singh asked the court to allow the appeals and remand the matter to the High Court.

It was alleged that the accused, along with five others, members of a banned Maoist organisation had distributed pamphlets, having seditious content, in a tribal colony in November 2013.

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