NIA plea for custody of 2 held in fake currency case rejected

MUMBAI: Observing that delay in seeking custody of the accused was not explained properly, a special court this week rejected the NIA's plea for custody of two accused arrested by the Thane police in a fake currency case in 2021 allegedly linked to Javed Patel alias Javed Chikana, a "designated individual terrorist" who is also an accused in the 1993 blasts case and a close associate of UN-designated global terrorist Dawood Ibrahim.
The investigation agency said Javed continued to be involved in cross-border trafficking of fake currency and other unlawful activities.
The NIA took over the investigation in February and sought 15 days' custody of arrested accused Riyaz Shikelakar and Nasir Chaudhary, submitting that they were part of an organisation involved in trafficking and circulation of high-quality fake currency in India with an intention to damage its monetary stability.
The special NIA court, however, said that as per the relevant section under the MCOCA, a police officer seeking custody of any person for "preindictment or pretrial interrogation" from judicial custody has to file a written statement explaining the reason for seeking such custody and also for the delay in seeking police custody. The special NIA court noted that the special MCOCA court in Thane had initially extended the custody of the accused for a period of 50 days. The court also said that the chargesheet in the case was submitted in April 2022 and it had taken cognisance of it on March 14 this year. "Though, affidavit is filed on behalf of prosecution, the delay caused is also not explained properly. In such (a) situation, application as preferred by the prosecution cannot be allowed. There is no substance in the submissions made by special public prosecutor," the special NIA judge said.
The prosecution submitted that for detailed investigation of the case, custodial interrogation of accused was highly necessary. It was also submitted that from the analysis of call details of the accused, some suspected numbers were found and it was necessary to thoroughly interrogate them for identifying the suspected persons and their role in the crime. It was further contended that the data extracted from the mobile handset of the arrested accused received from FSL consists of documents related to another NIA case in connection with the wanted accused 'Uncle'.
The advocates for the accused strongly opposed the application. They submitted that the provisions of UAPA came to be invoked in January 2022. It was further submitted that the application filed by the prosecution before the Thane court for grant of further police custody remand was rejected in March 2022.