New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Thursday quashed an order passed by the Mulayam Singh Government in Uttar Pradesh withdrawing the POTA charges against State Food and Civil Supplies Minister, Raghuraj Pratap Singh alias Raja Bhaiya, his father, Uday Pratap Singh, and cousin, Akshay Pratap Singh.

A Bench comprising Justice B.N. Agrawal and Justice A.K. Mathur also set aside the State POTA Review Committee's order holding that no prima facie case was made out for invoking the Prevention of Terrorism Act (POTA) against the accused.

The Bench directed that Mr. Raja Bhaiya, his father and cousin Mr. Akshay Pratap Singh alias Gopalji — a Samajwadi Party MP — to appear before the Kanpur Special Court within seven days and apply for fresh bail. The Bench ordered that they face trial under Section 4(b) of POTA for possessing arms within the specified area, under the Arms Act and the Explosives Substances Act, besides provisions of the Indian Penal Code. The Bench also directed the shifting of the trial to neighbouring Madhya Pradesh and said the Chief Justice of the High Court would assign the case to a competent court.

Petitioners

The Bench passed this order on petitions filed by S.K. Shukla and two other residents of Pratapgarh challenging the Uttar Pradesh Government's decision to withdraw the POTA charges against Raja Bhaiya, his father and cousin, who were arrested on murder charges in April 2003 and who came out on bail later.

The Mayawati Government had slapped POTA against them after they were arrested along with arms and ammunition, including an AK-47 and 56 rifles. During the arguments, the court was informed that the State POTA Review Committee had passed an order that no case was made out against them for invoking POTA.

The petitioners alleged that soon after Mr. Mulayam Singh was appointed Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh on August 28, 2003, he had advised the Governor to drop the POTA charges against Mr. Raja Bhaiya and two others. Hence the Governor accorded permission the next day to withdraw the POTA charges.

The petitioners contended that withdrawal of the POTA charges had been done without any mandate from the statute or the law and that the Government could not usurp and exclude the jurisdiction of the court. They prayed for a direction to quash the implementation of the order.

The Centre contended that under Section 321 of the Cr.P.C it was mandatory for the State Government to seek the Centre's permission to withdraw the POTA cases since it was a Central enactment. However, the State Government had not approached the Union Home Ministry with any specific proposal seeking the Centre's prior permission for withdrawing the cases.

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