Plea in HC seeks SIT probe against ‘encounter specialist’ Daya Nayak

The plea filed by the three accused also requested that the SIT be headed by a retired high court judge.

Mumbai: The Bombay high court on Tuesday directed the three petitioners, who sought the setting up of a Special Investigation Team (SIT) to investigate the allegedly false 2019 narcotic case registered against them by police officer Daya Nayak, to add the encounter specialist as a party to the petition.

Daya Nayak (HT ARCHIVES)

The plea filed by the three accused also requested that the SIT be headed by a retired high court judge.

The division bench of Justices Revati Mohite Dere and Sharmila Deshkumh was informed by advocate Ghanashyam Upadhyay that the petitioners -- Mohammed Wasim Abdul Latif Shaikh (47), Mustafa Zulfiqar Charniya (37), Tanveer Abdul Aziz Paryani (47), all currently lodged in Arthur Road jail -- were falsely implicated in the narcotics case as they had lodged a complaint against Nayak with the Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) for demanding bribe in another case.

According to the petition, in 2019 Nayak was attached to Amboli Police station when he intercepted a consignment of sandalwood and nabbed Sayed Inayat Ali Yawar Abbas alias Mohammad as a suspect in the case. Nayak allegedly demanded money from Mohammad who in turn discussed it with the petitioners, who are his friends. The quartet then decided to lodge a complaint with ACB Mumbai against Nayak.

The petition states that after receiving the complaint from the four friends at its Worli office, the ACB decided to set a trap and nab Nayak in the act of accepting the alleged extortion amount.

However, on March 1, 2019, the day when the trap was set, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi held a rally in Mumbai and Nayak was put on bandobast duty so the trap was called off.

The court was informed that later when Nayak learnt of the trap and the complaint, he colluded with the Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS) Vikhroli unit and implicated the petitioners in a false case under the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substance (NDPS) Act, 1985.

After hearing the submissions for some time, the bench was of the view that since the allegations against Nayak were serious in nature, he also had to be heard. The bench then directed the petitioners to include Nayak as a party to the petition and posted the hearing to August 18.