BENGALURU: The High Court on Tuesday set aside the Union government's order to entrust the probe of RSS secretary R Rudresh's murder case to the National Investigating Agency (NIA). The probe has now been handed back to Bengaluru city police after the accused challenged the move.
Justice John Michael D'Cunha pronounced the judgment which will now allow Commercial street police to continue their probe.
The accused Waseem Ahmed, Mujeeb, Sadiq, Irfan Pasha and Popular Front of India (PFI) local leader Asim Sharif had challenged the charges against them and also NIA’s takeover of the case.
The main contention of the petitioners was that the Union government had gone beyond the law while referring the matter to the NIA suo motu without any cogent material or request from Karnataka.
They also contended that assigning a local murder case to the NIA was an arbitrary use of executive power under political pressure, and that the alleged offences against them could not be traced to any terrorist activity for inclusion of provisions Sections 15,16,17,18 and 20 of Unlawful Activities Prevention Act 1967.
Appearing for the Ministry of Home Affairs, Additional Solicitor General Prabhuling K Navadgi argued that the decision to entrust the probe to NIA was taken based on what he termed as credible information gathered independently, as well as material collected regarding certain scheduled offences by the accused.
Prabhuling K Navadgi further claimed that the decision was in public interest but the issue pertained to national security as well as unity and integrity of the nation. He also placed before the court two files pertaining to the case, and argued that the accused have no say in choosing the investigating agency.
Rudresh, RSS secretary for Shivajinagar unit was hacked to death by two men on a motorbike in broad daylight in on October 16, 2016. Four of the accused were apprehended on October 27 and Asim Sharif on November 2 last year.
During the hearing, senior counsel C H Jadhav appearing for the NIA argued that an accused has no right to choose the investigating agency. “It is not for the accused to choose the investigating agency” he said while citing a couple of Apex court judgments in support of the same.
Jadhav further claimed that the probe by NIA would not take away the investigation done by the State police in terms of the explanation contained under section 6 of the NIA Act.