The Supreme Court ruled that the right to life and liberty under Article 21 cannot be ignored just because a person faces criminal charges. It quashed a case against Jay Kishan, Kuldeep Katara, and Krishna Katara, stating that the allegations stemmed from a property dispute and were civil, not criminal. The court warned against the misuse of the Gangsters Act, emphasizing that stricter laws require careful interpretation and strong evidence before being invoked.
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NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court of India, on Wednesday, ruled that a person’s right to life and liberty under Article 21 of the Constitution cannot be ignored just because they are facing criminal charges. The court made this statement while dismissing a case filed under the strict Uttar Pradesh Gangsters & Anti-Social Activities (Prevention) Act, 1986 against three individuals.
A bench of Justices Sudhanshu Dhulia and Ahsanuddin Amanullah emphasized that cases filed under this Act should not be common or routine; they must be serious in nature.
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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.”
At the same time, the court reaffirmed that the right to life and liberty under Article 21 cannot be denied solely on the basis that a person has criminal cases registered against them.
The court further observed,
“It would be plainly unwise to accord any unfettered discretion to the authorities concerned when it comes to invoking the Act.”
It pointed out that the more stringent a legal provision is, the more careful and strict its interpretation should be.
As a result, the Supreme Court overturned the January 17, 2024 order of the Allahabad High Court, which had refused to cancel an FIR filed against Jay Kishan, Kuldeep Katara, and Krishna Katara under the Gangsters Act.
These three individuals approached the Supreme Court, arguing that the FIRs against them stemmed from a property dispute between two families and that the allegations were civil in nature rather than criminal. Hence, proceedings under the Gangsters Act should be dismissed.
Justice Ahsanuddin Amanullah, who wrote the judgment, analyzed the cases mentioned in the FIR and observed that the allegations “substantially“ arose from property and financial transactions.
He noted,
“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 stressed that simply making allegations to justify the use of the Gangsters Act is not enough and that there must be strong evidence to support the claims.
It stated:
“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.”
Justice Amanullah further observed that the three criminal cases (CCs) referred to in the FIR lacked clarity and did not seem to meet the required standards for invoking the Gangsters Act.
He said,
“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.”
However, the court made it clear that if the allegations were proven in trial, then the use of the Gangsters Act might be justified.
It further stated,
“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.”
With this, the Supreme Court quashed the case against the three individuals, emphasizing the importance of protecting the fundamental right to life and liberty, even when criminal charges are involved.
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