The Supreme Court on Wednesday said the right to life and liberty under Article 21 of the Constitution couldn't be overlooked only because a person faced criminal charges as it quashed a case against three people under the stringent UP Gangsters Act.
A bench of Justices Sudhanshu Dhulia and Ahsanuddin Amanullah said the cases against persons in which the Uttar Pradesh Gangsters & Anti-Social Activities (Prevention) Act, 1986 Act was invoked couldn't be run-of-the-mill but serious.
The court said, "The severity required for the underlying case(s), we think, ought not to be judicially strait-jacketed as a lot would turn on the specific peculiarities of each case." However, it held the right to life and liberty guaranteed under Article 21 of the Constitution of India couldn't be overlooked only due to the reason that criminal cases were registered against a person.
"It would be plainly unwise to accord any unfettered discretion to the authorities concerned when it comes to invoking the Act," it added.
More stringent or penal a provision, greater the emphasis and requirement for it to be strictly construed, the court said.
The bench therefore set aside the January 17, 2024 order of the Allahabad High Court which refused to quash the FIR against three persons -- Jay Kishan, Kuldeep Katara and Krishna Katara.
They moved the top court on the premise that three predicate FIRs were related to the property dispute between two families and the allegations were civil in nature and proceedings under the Act were liable to be quashed.
Justice Amanullah, who authored the verdict, said the scrutiny of the cases cited in the FIR to invoke the Gangsters Act against the appellants prima facie revealed that the same "substantially" emanated from certain property and monetary transactions.
"The said transactions are primarily civil in nature. No doubt, addition of various sections of the IPC in the three CCs may come under the ambit of the offences specified in Section 2(b) of the Act. However, undoubtedly, mere invocation of certain sections of the IPC could not and would not preclude the court from, in a manner of speaking, lifting the veil, to understand what actually lies beneath the material, which is sought to be made the basis for invoking the Act," the court held.
Compliance and strict adherence mean only an eyewash by making allegations with a view to set up grounds to justify resort to the Gangsters Act would not suffice, it added.
"Material(s) must be available to gauge the probability of commission of the alleged offence(s). Necessarily, this would have to be of a level higher than being merely presumptive," the bench said.
Justice Amanullah said the three criminal cases (CC) which find reference in the FIR invoking UP Gangsters Act, would at a glance exhibit a certain vagueness.
"The same would not meet the threshold requirement to enable recourse to the Act. Obviously, the allegations in the CCs are yet to be adjudicated finally by a competent court. We may hasten to add that not for a minute are we to be misunderstood to mean that the Act cannot be invoked basis pending cases. Of course, it can be," said the bench.
The situation would be very different though, said the court, if the allegations levelled were proved during trial as it could have been a good ground to sustain and justify action under the Act.
"The underlying CCs (criminal cases) do not appear to fall within the net of ‘violence, or threat or show of violence, or intimidation, or coercion or otherwise with the object of disturbing public order or of gaining any undue temporal, pecuniary, material or other advantage', as mandated under Section 2(b) of the Act. The situation, thus, would clearly operate to the benefit of the appellants," it said.
