Setting aside a Special NIA Court’s order, the Manipur High Court on Thursday cancelled the bail granted to two Kuki leaders for allegedly “waging war against India” and attempting to establish an independent “Government of the People’s Democratic Republic of Kukiland.”
The NIA court Had justified the bail on the grounds that the charge sheet against them was filed without obtaining the necessary prosecution sanction order, rendering it incomplete and entitling the accused to default bail.
However, a Manipur High Court bench comprising Chief Justice Siddharth Mridul and Justice A. Guneshwar Sharma remarked that the NIA court “erred grossly” while granting bail to the accused on grounds that an incomplete chargesheet was filed against them.
The bench referred to the precedent set in the case of Judgebir Singh and Ors. vs. National Investigation Agency and quashed the bail order.
“From the ratio of the Judgebir Singh (supra), it is now a settled proposition of law that, charge sheet filed without prosecution sanction order cannot be treated as an incomplete charge sheet so as to enable the accused to claim an indefeasible right to be released on default bail.
“We are concomitantly of the view that, the learned Special Judge (NIA), Imphal West erred grossly in holding that the subject charge sheet filed without prosecution sanction order from the competent authority is an incomplete charge sheet and the accused is entitled to be released on bail,” legal news website Live Law quoted Chief Justice Mridul as saying in the judgment.
The Court noted that the charge sheet without the sanction order was submitted on November 25, 2022, and the application for default bail was only filed on March 18, 2023.
The High Court found that the Special Court’s order from March 28, 2023, which granted default bail to the accused, was contrary to the law and subsequently set it aside.