NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court recently declined to extend similar relief to a large number of accused persons under the Terrorists and Disruptive Activities which it provided for Shabnam Lone, a lawyer practicing in the Supreme Court who was let off on bail within hours of his arrest under the draconian law.

A five judge Constitution bench headed by the chief justice, Justice M.H.Kania, disposed to the writ petition which had sought release of Lone, a junior to the senior advocate, K.K. Venugopal, since the lad been granted bail by the designated court.

On a direction by the apex court Lone, daughter of the former J&K minister, Abdul Ghan Khan Lone, had been straight away produced before the designated court without subjecting her to usual remand proceedings.

Ms. Lone, 28 was arrested by the South Delhi police during the wee hours of July 24 from her Lajpa Nagar residence. Soon, a writ petition was filed in the Supreme Court seeking release of Ms. Lone whose father is chairman of the People’s Conference.

The Constitution bench ordered that she be produced before the court which could consider the bail application also, The attorney general, G. Ramaswamy, had however strongly pleaded that under TADA, an accused has to be produced before the magistrate. He said the court was yet to decide the constitutionality of TADA and until then, the accused could no longer be given the relief of straightaway seeking bail.

Besides a large number of lawyers, the Supreme Court Bar Association also stood unitedly before the court pleading for their colleague’s release, The attorney general had submitted that Lone was arrested under law as there were serious charges against her.

During the hearing, D.C, (special branch), B.S. Bola submitted in an affidavit that Lone was arrested following interrogation of the two accused, one being a Pakistani national. It was that Lone was a conduit & the militants in J&K and Pakistan intelligence agencies.  

 It had also been revealed by  accused person that months ago  the accused Shashi Kumar

Aggarwal, had handed  over  three lakh to Lone. The money was to be sent to  Kashmiri militants. The police had also recovered Rs 2.83 lakh from  Shashi Kumar’s residence.

The affidavit inter-alia said that the police found a register at Lone  house. It contained the name of  one ‘Hilal.’ Other articles found were-a dictionary having the name— of one ‘Mustak,’ a pee number (31849) and a small slip indicating a bank  account number lone could not explain about Mustak’ and ‘Hilal,” The  affidavit said one Hilal is the chief c Ikhwan-ul-Musilmeen, a terrorist from Pakistan. One Mustak was also related to another terrorist — organization, Al Umar or Hijbal  Mujahidin. Both these organizations had been banned in India, the affidavit said.

During her brief interrogation, Lone had admitted knowing Mohammad Anis, who had been arrested on charge of financing the militants in J&K. Lone was however unable to explain under what circumstances she had known — him. The affidavit said Lone    father, Abdul Ghani Kham Lone, was detained during 1990 and 1992 under the J&K Public Safety Act, The affidavit which has been kept on the record of disposed of writ petition was stoutly answered in a rejoinder by the petitioner. The court was informed about the order passed by the designated court while granting her bail. It was pointed out that the allegations against Lone were concocted and fabricated, These were after thoughts as the Supreme Court had been urged to releaser The copy of the rejoinder was not  made available to this correspondent.

 

Article extracted from this publication >> Aug 14, 1992