Involvement in a demonstration due to a communal flare-up does not mean participation in a gang: Supreme Court
The Supreme Court of India has said mere involvement of an accused in a demonstration pursuant to a communal flare-up, however serious, does not ipso facto transform the participants into a ‘gang’ without evidence of organised and continuous criminal activity.
A bench of Justices Vikram Nath and Sandeep Mehta further relied on a temporal gap, which undermined the prosecution's endeavour to demonstrate ongoing gang operations or escalating criminal behaviour that would justify the invocation of the Uttar Pradesh Gangsters Act.
Before the Supreme Court, the High Court's order to not quash an FIR filed against one Lal Mohd under Section 3(1) of the Uttar Pradesh Gangsters & Anti-Social Activities (Prevention) Act, 1986 was challenged.
The appellant and a few others claiming to be members of a political party in the State of Uttar Pradesh had assembled outside the shop owned by one Rikki Modanwal raising vociferous protests against a post on a social media platform in which he allegedly used language perceived as defamatory towards a particular religion.
The protests escalated into violence and acts of vandalism between two different religious groups.
"In the present case, the incident occurred on 10th October, 2022, and the appellants were granted bail in January, 2023, after the competent courts found no criminal history and only simple injuries resulting from the altercation. The gang chart was prepared and approved on 29th April, 2023, and the impugned FIR was registered on 30th April, 2023, sans any fresh or intervening conduct. This sequence indicates that the gang chart was manifestly a post facto construction aimed at recharacterizing an already investigated and prosecuted communal altercation as an act of organised crime, without any new evidence to warrant such a serious escalation.", top court noted.
Supreme Court went on to observe, "When juxtaposed with the object and intent of the UP Gangsters Act, which was enacted to combat organised gang-based crime and dismantle criminal syndicates that pose a persistent threat to public order, the application of the Act to the appellants based on a single incident of communal violence flaring up from an incendiary post made by one against a particular religion represents a significant departure from its legislative purpose. The afterthought application of the UP Gangsters Act in the present case, in absence of any subsequent criminal conduct of the appellant, bears the hallmark of colourable exercise of power for purposes extraneous to the Act’s legitimate objectives.".
When a statute creates serious fetters on personal liberty, the evidentiary foundation for its invocation must be commensurately strong, supported by concrete, verifiable facts rather than vague assertions, court added.
Observing that the impugned FIR and the gang chart failed to meet the essential threshold, as they rest largely on presumptive theories rather than presenting tangible material to establish the probability that the appellants were engaged in organised criminal activity as contemplated by the Act, supreme court said that compelling the appellants to undergo another prosecution under the UP Gangsters Act for the same set of allegations, would constitute a manifest abuse of the legal process and result in a gross miscarriage of justice.
"Considering the foregoing facts and circumstances, we are of the view that the procedural and substantive thresholds prescribed under Sections 2(b) and 2(c) of the UP Gangsters Act have not been adequately met in the present case. Hence, the impugned FIR dated 30th April, 2023, namely CC No. 132 of 2023, does not stand to scrutiny. The impugned judgment dated 3rd May, 2023, rendered by a learned Division Bench of the High Court of Judicature at Allahabad, in Criminal Miscellaneous Writ Petition No. 3494 of 2023, stands set aside...", the supreme court ordered accordingly.
Case Title: LAL MOHD. & ANR. vs. STATE OF U.P. & ORS