‘Evidence tainted with doubt’: Mumbai bizman Birju Salla walks out of Gujarat jail

The Gujarat high court delivered its order setting aside Birju Salla’s conviction after the Supreme Court, on a request by the businessman, set a two-month deadline for a ruling

AHMEDABAD: Mumbai-based businessman Birju Kishore Salla walked out of Sabarmati jail on Wednesday morning after the Gujarat high court overturned his conviction under India’s stringent anti-hijacking law for triggering a hijack scare on a Jet Airways Mumbai-Delhi flight in 2017, his lawyer Hardik Modh said.

The Gujarat high court noted that the stated motive that the business wanted to defame the airline “lost its worth” during investigation (File Photo)

Salla’s family said he was on his way home in Mumbai.

Back in 2018, Salla was the first to be placed on a national no-fly list. The following year, he was also the first to be convicted under the Anti-Hijack Act ,2016.

Salla was sentenced by a special court to life imprisonment in 2019 for planting a note in the aircraft’s lavatory that threatened to blow up the plane if it wasn’t taken to Pakistan-occupied Kashmir. The plane made an emergency landing in Ahmedabad where Salla was arrested.

The special NIA court, which convicted Salla in June 2019, also ordered the businessman to pay ₹5 crore fine and compensate the crew and passengers.

On Tuesday, a bench of justices AS Supehia and MR Mengdey struck down the conviction, holding that the NIA hadn’t been able to establish that the note found by the crew in the lavatory was kept there by Salla.

Reading out the operative portion of the verdict, justice Supehia said the prosecution’s inability to establish with certainty that the accused alone prepared the threat note in his office was glaring.

Besides, in its 96-page verdict, the bench scrutinised the other evidence cited by the prosecution, raised questions about the credibility of the stock witnesses produced by the investigating and noted that the prosecution had not come up with any motive for Salla.

The high court noted that according to the initial complaint, Salla said that he committed the offence to defame the airline due to his estranged relationship with his girlfriend, a Jet Airways employee. “Down the line, and in course of the investigation, such motive has lost its worth,” the bench said.

“The overall appreciation of the evidence reveals that the same does not establish the guilt of the accused beyond reasonable doubt. The evidence does not unequivocally nails the appellant in a serious offence of hijacking,” the high court said.

“We do not subscribe to the view expressed by the trial court convicting and sentencing the appellant for the offence of hijacking on the premise of evidence which is tainted with doubt. Hence, the present appeal stands allowed,” the bench said.

The high court also set aside the ₹5 crore fine and ordered the airline’s pilot and the crew, who were to get ₹1 lakh and ₹75,000 respectively by the trial court, to refund the money if they had received it. “The aforesaid fine shall be refunded to the appellant in case it is paid. The crew members are also directed to refund the amount of compensation in case the same is paid as per the directions of the Trial Court. In the alternative, the State is directed to pay the amount which is paid to the crew members, and it will be open for the State to recover such amount from the crew members”.