The Gauhati high court had held that the trial court had not given the National Investigation Agency sufficient time to contest Gogoi’s discharge.
The Supreme Court on Tuesday, April 18, confirmed all aspects of the Gauhati high court’s decision to set aside a trial court’s discharge of Akhil Gogoi under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act. However, it also granted bail to the Assam MLA and activist during the pendency of the trial.
A bench of Justices V. Ramasubramanian and Pankaj Mithal, had reserved its verdict on Gogoi’s appeal against the high court order in March. The high court had held that the trial court did not give the National Investigation Agency sufficient time to contest Gogoi’s discharge.
Gogoi had appealed against the decision at the apex court, arguing that the high court had not considered that nothing in his conduct had suggested that he would “destroy the national integrity or any terrorist activity”.
In July 2021, Gogoi was acquitted of all charges in the second of two cases being investigated by the National Investigation Agency, in which he was booked under the UAPA and several other sections of the Indian Penal Code. The judgment by NIA judge Pranjal Das paved the way for Gogoi to walk free after over a year-long stint in jail, during which he battled severe health issues.
Arrested at the peak of the anti-Citizenship Amendment Act protests, Gogoi had contested the assembly elections in Assam from jail and won from the Sivasagar seat.
A senior advocate Huzefa Ahmadi told the court that sending the embattled legislator back to jail after being ‘at liberty’ for almost two years on the basis of flimsy evidence, some of which was from before 2009 would be a ‘travesty’ of justice.
Ahmadi criticised the observations of the high court and urged the Supreme Court to modify the high court’s order so as to not have it refuse Gogoi’s prayer for bail and remand the matter to the trial court without the consideration of the high court’s observations.
Ahmadi also noted that “this was a case of political vendetta.”
Additional Solicitor-General Aishwarya Bhati, for the NIA, alleged that Gogoi was associated with Maoist organisations which were “making the country bleed by a hundred cuts, if not a thousand cuts.”
