UAPA charges dropped in Nitta Gelatin attack case

KOCHI: The Ernakulam Additional Sessions Court has dropped the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA) charges against the CPI (Maoist) activists who allegedly attacked the corporate office of Nitta Gelatine, a Japanese company, at Panampilly Nagar in Kochi on November 10, 2014. The court’s order followed the delay in obtaining the state government’s sanction in the stipulated seven days. 

The accused persons will be facing trial on the IPC offences charged against them. The order came on a petition filed by Arun Balan, Sreekanth, Ramanan, Anoop Mathew George and Jose to discharge them from the case.  The attack on the corporate office of Nita Gelatin in 2014 was based on a decision of the CPI (Maoist) central leadership. As many as 11 persons assembled at Panampilly Nagar on November 10, 2014. 

They trespassed into the compound of Nita Gelatine, intimidated the security staffer, took him to the security cabin, shouted Maoist slogans, damaged glass doors, computer, monitors, a land phone and the windshield of a car. They later left Maoist pamphlets before leaving the place. The case was registered under IPC Sections 143 (unlawful assembly), 144 (unlawful assembly armed with deadly weapons), 147 (rioting), 148 (rioting with deadly weapons), 427 (mischief causing damage), 448 (house trespass), 506 (criminal intimidation) and 120 (criminal conspiracy). 

UAPA Sections 16(1)(2) (terrorist act), 18 (conspiracy), 20 (member of a terrorist organisation) and 38 (having membership in a terrorist organisation) were invoked against the accused. However, as per the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Recommendation and Sanction of Prosecution Rules, after receiving evidence, an authority headed by a retired High Court judge has to recommend sanction for invoking UAPA to the state government. 

The sanction has to be granted in seven working days. 
In this case, the recommended sanction was made on November 26, 2015 and the sanction by the state government was given on December 17, 2015. In March this year, the Kerala High Court had quashed three cases against Roopesh, an alleged member of CPI(Maoist), also due to the delay in granting sanction. In Roopesh’s case, there was a delay of six months to grant sanction.