NEW DELHI/KOZHIKODE: The Supreme Court on Thursday granted bail to Thwaha Fazal, who was arrested on charges of having links with the banned CPI (Maoist). The bench of Justices Ajay Rastogi and Abhay Sreeniwas Oka also declined the plea of the National Investigation Agency (NIA) to cancel the bail of Alan Shuhaib, the other accused in the case.
The division bench of the High Court had refused to cancel Alan’s bail considering his young age and health. Senior advocate R Basant, who appeared for Alan, argued that the intention of offence under Sections 38 and 39 of UAPA could not be based on mere books and pamphlets, which were claimed to have been recovered from him.
The NIA court had granted bail to both of them in September 2020 but the High Court cancelled Thwaha’s bail in January this year. The SC bench directed NIA to produce Thwaha before the NIA court in Kochi to complete the bail formalities. The conditions of the bail order passed by the NIA court in September 2020 will have to be followed.
Both Thwaha and Alan were arrested from Pantheerankavu in Kozhikode city on November 1, 2019. The case was initially probed by Kerala Police but later it was taken over by the NIA because the police had invoked sections of the UAPA against them. The case had a political colour because the youth were members of the CPM. There was criticism against the CPM’s “double-standard” on UAPA and a Left government invoking the “draconian law”.