The Supreme Court on Monday dismissed a petition of the Jammu Kashmir Police challenging the cancellation of PDP leader Waheed Ur Rehman Parra’s bail application.
Justices Sanjay Kishan Kaul and Abhay S Oka in an order rejected a special leave petition moved by the Jammu and Kashmir Police’s Special Investigating Agency (SIA), which is a unit of the CID department.
“On hearing the learned counsel for parties, we would not like to interfere with the aspect of the grant of bail but we are certainly not giving our imprimatur to any of the observations coming in the impugned order as regards the interpretation of the UAPA (Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act),” the order said while dismissing the special leave petition.
Solicitor General Tushar Mehta along with other lawyers prayed for the cancellation of Parra’s bail application. The PDP leader’s counsel Shariq J Reyaz opposed it.
Parra was granted bail by the Jammu Kashmir and Ladakh High Court in May after 18 months in jail in a terror-related case and it had said the evidence gathered by the prosecution is “too sketchy” to deny him the relief.
A close confidant of former Jammu Kashmir chief minister Mehbooba Mufti, Parra was first arrested by the National Investigation Agency on November 25, 2020, and got bail on January 9, 2021.
However, he was never released from jail in Jammu and was arrested by the Criminal Investigation (Kashmir Wing) of the Jammu Kashmir Police, which has now been converted into the SIA.
There were some observations made by the high court about the using of UAPA but the apex court made it clear that while granting the bail “we are certainly not giving our imprimatur to any of the observations coming in the impugned order”.–(PTI)