New Delhi: The Delhi High Court Friday rejected a petition filed by former Congress municipal councillor Ishrat Jahan who had challenged a trial court order extending the time for completing an investigation against her by 60 more days.
Jahan was arrested on 26 February and booked under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA) in a case related to the communal violence in northeast Delhi in February.
Rejecting her plea, Justice Suresh Kumar Kait noted there was “no illegality or perversity” in the order granting the extension.
A trial court had on 15 June granted a 60-day extension to the police, till 14 August, to complete its probe against her.
The FIR against her mentions several provisions of the Indian Penal Code, including section 302 (murder), 307 (attempt to murder) and 153A (promoting enmity between different groups on ground of religion, race, place of birth, residence, language, etc), along with provisions of the Prevention of Damage of Public Property Act 1984, Arms Act and the UAPA.
‘Trial court found reasons to extend investigation period’
Jahan had challenged the trial court’s order by submitting that the application for extension, filed under section 43D of the UAPA, did not give any specific reason.
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Section 43D of the UAPA says if it is not possible to complete an investigation within a period of 90 days, the court may extend it up to 180 days. The court can do this after perusing the report of the public prosecutor on the progress of the probe and listing down specific reasons for the detention of an accused beyond the 90-day period.
The high court was of the view that the additional sessions judge (ASJ) found “sufficient reasons” to extend the period of investigation.
The ASJ’s order had said, “It is specifically contended that the case involves a deep rooted and large scale conspiracy and the key conspirators are yet to be arrested, the source of illegal funds is required to be investigated, mobile phone data is to be retrieved and analysed, the conspiracy is multi layered and the deep rooted conspiracy is to be unearthed, certified copies of complete details of mobile phones of accused are still awaited and same is to be examined for the purpose of investigation and the prosecution sanction under section 45 of the UAPA and other necessary permission is still awaited.”
Taking note of such observations made by the lower court, the high court observed that the ASJ had considered “all relevant circumstances” before extending the time for investigation.
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