2019 Gadchiroli blast: HC drops MCOCA charges against suspected Naxalites

A division bench of justice AS Gadkari and justice Shyam Chandak dropped the charges against the accused persons for want of compliance with the requirement of Section 2 (d) of the MCOCA

MUMBAI: The Bombay high court on Tuesday held that the suspected Naxalites arrested in connection with the May 2019 Gadchiroli IED blast, which killed 16 people — including 15 police commandoes and the driver, cannot be prosecuted under the stringent provisions of the Maharashtra Control of Organized Crimes Act (MCOCA).

Mangled remains of a police vehicle , Fifteen jawans of C-60, an anti-Maoist squad of Gadchiroli police, and a driver were killed in a powerful landmine blast on Dadapur Road in Gadchiroli district in May 2019. (HT Archives)

A division bench of justice AS Gadkari and justice Shyam Chandak dropped the charges against the accused persons for want of compliance with the requirement of Section 2 (d) of the MCOCA.

The section requires that at least two chargesheets be filed against the organised crime syndicate in the next ten years, which is punishable by at least 3 years of imprisonment. The trial court should have taken cognisance of the offences before committing the offence in question.

“Therefore, we have no other option than to set aside the impugned prior approval dated 7th February 2020, and to hold that the Appellants cannot be prosecuted for the offence under Section 3 of the MCOC Act,” said the bench.

On May 1, 2019, a powerful IED (Improvised Explosive Device) blast took place under the bridge on Purada-Kurkheda Road in the Gadchiroli district. The blast targeted a vehicle carrying QRT members, killing 15 of them, and the civilian driver of the car.

Police investigations revealed that the blast was triggered to avenge the deaths of 40 Naxalites killed by Gadchiroli police in the Kasnasur-Boriya encounter of 2018.

The case was later transferred to NIA for further investigation. The federal agency found that the offence was committed by the organised crime syndicate of a banned terrorist organization, CPI (M) and in the preceding ten years at least 23 criminal cases had been registered against the head of the crime syndicate and late alleged Naxalite leader Nirmala Kumari Uppuganti aka Narmadakka.

Therefore, a proposal for invoking stringent provisions of the MCOCA was submitted to the Competent Authority of NIA and the authority approved the proposal on February 7, 2020. In the proposal, the NIA officials cited two cases registered against the “organised crime syndicate” registered in 2019.

Three of the accused arrested in the case — Somsay Dalasay Madvi, Kisan Sitaram Hidami and Parasrama Tulavi had approached the high court to drop the MCOCA charges levelled against them after the special court rejected their plea on March 6, 2023.

On Tuesday, the bench accepted their plea and held that they cannot be prosecuted under the stringent charges. The judges said though, in both the cases cited in the NIA proposal, chargesheets were filed and charges attracting over three years of rigorous imprisonment were invoked. However, the trial court had not taken cognisance of one of the two on the date of the offence or the registration of the FIR (May 1 or May 2, 2019). Therefore, acceptance of the proposal by the Competent Authority was legally impermissible.

The court noted that while in one of the two cited cases, the trial court had taken cognisance before the blast, i.e. on April 22, 2019, in the other case the cognisance was taken much after the attack, on May 30, 2019. Therefore the Competent Authority could not have approved the proposal to invoke MCOCA provisions.