Supreme Court Upholds Khurram Parvez’s Bail, Dismisses NIA Plea In UAPA Terror Funding Case

The order was passed by a Bench of Justices MM Sundresh and PB Varale.

Additional Solicitor General (ASG) Raja Thakare appeared for the NIA. Senior Advocate Tanveer Ahmed Mir appeared for Khurram Parvez.

The ground on which the Supreme Court declined to intervene was the period Khurram Parvez has already spent behind bars. Parvez was arrested in the case on November 22, 2021, from Srinagar, and, according to his counsel, has undergone custody for nearly five years.

Having regard to that period of incarceration, the Bench found no reason to interfere with the High Court's order, and the NIA's petition was dismissed.

Appearing for Khurram Parvez, Senior Advocate Mir informed the Bench that his client has a prosthetic leg and has undergone custody for nearly five years.

Mir also informed the Court that the trial had not progressed to the stage of charge. The framing of charges, he submitted, has been deferred since August 19, when the NIA sought time to file a supplementary chargesheet.

In July the High Court had refused to stay a trial court order granting bail to Khurram Parvez and Irfan Mehraj, a regular contributor to Al-Jazeera, in a UAPA case relating to alleged terror funding through non-governmental organisations (NGOs). A division bench of Justice Prathiba M. Singh and Justice Vikas Mahajan instead imposed stricter bail conditions on the accused.

The National Investigation Agency (NIA) had challenged the July 18 order of the Patiala House Court, by which Principal District and Sessions Judge Pitamber Dutt granted bail to Parvez and Mehraj in the 2020 UAPA case.

The case stems from an FIR registered by the NIA in October 2020 alleging that certain NGOs, trusts and societies operating in Jammu and Kashmir collected funds in India and abroad under the guise of charitable and welfare activities and diverted them to finance terrorist activities.

According to the agency, the organisations developed links with banned terrorist outfits, including Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) and Hizbul Mujahideen (HM). The accused dispute the allegations. The NIA had alleged that Khurram Parvez, coordinator of the Jammu and Kashmir Coalition of Civil Societies (JKCCS), raised funds from international entities under the guise of promoting human rights and channelled those funds to support terror-related activities in the Kashmir Valley. It further claimed that Parvez and his associates propagated a secessionist agenda through various NGOs and provided "material support" to protesters during the 2016 Kashmir unrest.

As regards Irfan Mehraj, the agency alleges that he was a close associate of Parvez and worked as a researcher with JKCCS until March 2022.

The bail order (dated July 18) of the Trial Court has paved the way for Parvez's release, as he had recently obtained bail from the Delhi High Court in a separate 2021 NIA case alleging that he recruited overground workers for the banned terrorist outfit Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT). In that order, among the 13 different conditions imposed on Parvez, the High Court had specifically forbidden him from uploading/sharing/disseminating or circulating any anti-national material on any social media platform or otherwise.

As per the NIA's allegations in the 2021 case, Parvez acted as Program Coordinator of the Jammu and Kashmir Coalition of Civil Society (JKCCS) and the Chairperson of the Asian Federation Against Involuntary Disappearances (AFAD), wherein, in the guise of human rights activism, he was part of the larger conspiracy.

He allegedly, in the guise of human rights activism, was actively involved in collecting information regarding the movement of Army vehicles near the Line of Control, road conditions and details of army camps, structures of the army, paramilitary and police, etc.

Information regarding officers and security personnel who were involved in militancy operations was also collected, and a dossier of officers named "High-Ranking Perpetrators" was maintained.

Parvez's mail data also allegedly revealed that he was in contact with many Pakistani journalists who wanted to portray India in a bad light and wanted from the appellant, footage of the presence of the Indian Army in Kashmir.

In its June 2026 order, the High Court had noted that visiting cards, including that of spokespersons of Pakistan-based proscribed terrorist organisation Hizb-ul Mujahideen (HM) were found at office of JKCCS and Parvez had visited Pakistan twice in the year 2007 and 2015, during which he had met Syed Salauddin (Amir of HM), a designated terrorist. The accused had also been in contact with Hurriyat leaders from both sides of the border.