BENGALURU: The Karnataka High Court has dismissed the petition filed by the 15 accused in the 2020 DG Halli-KG Halli riots case. The accused challenged the order passed by a special court rejecting their petition seeking discharge from the case. They were chargesheeted by the National Investigation Agency (NIA) under the provisions of the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act.
“The petitioners have not made out any rarest of the rare case for this court to interfere under Article 226 of the Constitution. The writ petition is not maintainable against an order rejecting a discharge application as the rejection of the discharge application is classified as not an interlocutory order but an intermediate order as it affects the rights of the accused to avoid trial and is therefore challengeable under Section 21(1) of the NIA Act”, said a division bench of Justice Sreenivas Harish Kumar and Justice K S Hemalekha while rejecting the petition recently.
The petitioners, Syed Abbas and 14 others from the city, are being prosecuted under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA) and also for other offences under IPC. The petitioners sought discharge for the offences punishable under UAPA investigated by the NIA.
The petitioners filed an application under Section 227 CrPC seeking discharge for the offences punishable under Sections 16, 18 and 20 of UAPA, contending that the prosecution lacked evidence and the charges levelled against them under UAPA were not made out.
The special court rejected the discharge application on August 5, 2024, stating that there was sufficient material to proceed to trial.
On August 11, 2020, a large number of people gathered around KG Halli police station at around 8.45 pm, protesting and demanding the arrest of one P Naveen, nephew of a local MLA. They were upset over derogatory comments allegedly posted by Naveen. By 8.50 pm a group of people led by others entered the police station premises demanding registration of a case against Naveen and others.
The protestors insisted that the police hand over Naveen to them. As the situation escalated, the police used lathi charge to disperse the crowd, but the mob grew more aggressive. In an effort to protect themselves and public property, the police fired upon the crowd resulting in the death of one person. The rioters also damaged all the government and private vehicles and caused injuries to several police personnel.