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SC awards ₹10L relief to ‘spy’ jailed in Pak for 14 years
The SC said that the central government must pay the ex-gratia amount to Ansari in the wake of “peculiar circumstances” of the case.
The standard practice of any government is to disown its special agents, the Supreme Court observed on Monday as it ordered the Centre to pay ₹10 lakh in compensation to a man who claimed to have worked as a spy for India in the 1970s and served 14 years in a Pakistan jail under the espionage charge.
Even as it refrained from adjudicating the claims made by 75-year-old Mahmood Ansari regarding his engagement as a spy in 1972 while he was employed in the railway mail service, the top court said that the central government must pay the ex-gratia amount to Ansari in the wake of “peculiar circumstances” of the case.
The bench, comprising Chief Justice of India Uday Umesh Lalit and Justice S Ravindra Bhat, took note that while the government has admitted that Ansari worked in the mail service department in Rajasthan, it has not been able to bring on record any material to contradict his contention that he travelled to Pakistan successfully twice before he was captured by authorities there in 1976.
“The standard practice of any government is to disown its special agents. No government will own them...perhaps rightly so, but this is how it works,” commented the bench, as additional solicitor general (ASG) Vikramjit Banerjee emphasised that the Indian government had nothing to do with Ansari.
According to the law officer, Ansari was sacked due to unauthorised absence between 1976 and 1980. Banerjee added that there were letters written by Ansari to authorities in India from a Pakistan jail, raising suspicions about his conduct.
The court, however, asked the ASG to show documents indicating Ansari was at his workplace in Jaipur during the time he claimed to have gone to Pakistan for assignments.
“If he was absent since 1976, why did it take you four years to terminate him? Can you show if he was present in the post when he claims he went to Pakistan? If he was not present, how was his absence treated by the department?” it asked Banerjee, who said it was very difficult to fetch such records that date back to the 1970s.
“We get it that there will be no official records in such cases if we listen to the petitioner’s submissions. Therefore, we are going to ask you to pay an ex-gratia amount of ₹5 lakh,” the bench told the ASG.
While Banerjee resisted the compensation order on the ground that it would mean accepting the petitioner’s submissions, Ansari’s lawyer, Samar Vijay Singh, urged the court to enhance the amount. “He has given his services for the nation. He was in jail for 14 years and now, the government has not only disowned him, but also declined to pay him pension. The petitioner is 75 and is completely dependent on his daughter,” Singh argued.
Accepting Singh’s plea, the bench increased the compensation to ₹10 lakh. At the same time, it told the ASG that the court is steering clear of the controversy on whether Ansari was an Indian spy or not. “We are not recording anything regarding his claims in our order,” it told Banerjee.
Ansari’s petition stated that he received an offer from the Special Intelligence Bureau to render services towards the nation when he was working in Jaipur and was sent to Pakistan twice for carrying out a specific task. However, he was intercepted by the Pakistani Rangers and arrested on December 12, 1976, according to the petition.
Ansari was prosecuted under Official Secrets Act in Pakistan, and in 1978, he was sentenced to 14 years in jail.
Meanwhile, in July 1980, an ex-parte order was passed to dismiss him from his services even though he wrote several missives informing authorities of his whereabouts during the period of his incarceration in Pakistan, the plea said.
In 1989, Ansari came back to India after his release and challenged his dismissal before the Central Administrative Tribunal and the Rajasthan high court, but to no avail.
