Bengaluru: Karnataka high court recently dismissed a petition filed by Dr Sabeel Ahmed, an accused in the 2012 Bengaluru terror plot case and imposed Rs 10,000 cost upon him.
The petitioner challenged a May 27, 2024 order passed by the special court for NIA cases, Bengaluru, which rejected his application. Along with a co-accused, the petitioner filed an application seeking to summon a witness, a prosecution witness working as Scientist F at Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (C-DAC), Thiruvananthapuram. The trial court directed them to pay Rs 20,650 as travel allowance to the witness as a pre-condition.
Challenging the order, Ahmed argued the witness is entitled to travel allowance and dearness allowance only as per Sections 243(3) and 312 of CrPC, read with Rule 4(3) of the Rules, and not as per the calculation submitted by the public prosecutor.
P Prasanna Kumar, special public prosecutor for NIA, submitted that evidence of the witness could not be completed due to dilatory tactics of the petitioner and that he was made to appear before the trial court several times.
Kumar said considering the conduct of the accused, the trial court granted adjournment subject to payment of travel allowance and dearness allowance to the witness, who works with C-DAC, which is not a govt department.
A division bench of Justices KS Mudagal and Vijayakumar A Patil pointed out that summoning the witness repeatedly disturbs his work and public time. They directed the petitioner to comply within 10 days with the trial court's order for payment of the amount as travel allowance to the scientist-witness.