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Swapna Suresh gets bail in UAPA case, to walk out after 15 months in jail
The Kerala high court cited an observation by another bench of the court, that a mere act of gold smuggling, covered under the Customs Act, will not amount to a terrorist act under the provisions of the UAPA
THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Swapna Suresh, the former secretary at UAE’s consulate general’s Thiruvananthapuram office arrested in July 2020 on charges of running a gold smuggling racket, was granted bail along with seven others by the Kerala high court on Tuesday in a case investigated by the National Investigation Agency under the anti-terror law Unlawful Activities Prevention Act.
Tuesday’s ruling by the bench of justices Vinod Chandran and C Jayachandran will enable Swapna Suresh to walk out of prison after 15 months. She was earlier granted bail in related cases registered by the Enforcement Directorate and Customs department. Last month, a different bench of the high court also set aside the detention order issued under Cofeposa (Conservation of Foreign Exchange and Prevention of Smuggling Activities Act).
“I feel she is innocent and made a pawn by others,” said Swapna Suresh’s mother Kumari Prabha after Tuesday’s bail order.
The other seven also granted bail are PS Sarith, Rabins Hameed, KT Ramees, KT Sharfuddin, Mohammad Ali, Rabins Hameed and AM Jalal. At one point, NIA officials alleged that KT Ramees and M Sharafuddin visited Tanzania on several occasions and met Dawood Ibrahim’s contact Feroze ‘Oasis’ to discuss ways to smuggle firearms into the country.
Additional solicitor general SV Raju, who appeared for NIA, opposed the bail plea by the eight suspects, saying they were kingpins behind a thriving smuggling racket and charges against them were grave. NIA said Swapna Suresh and others committed a terrorist act by smuggling 167 kg of gold into India from UAE between November 2019 to June 2020 as they knew that doing so would threaten the security and economic stability of the country.
But the suspects countered the NIA accusation, underscoring that the charge sheet filed against 20 people by the federal agency did not mention terror funding or involvement of transnational forces.
The high court relied on observation of another bench in February that a mere act of gold smuggling, covered under the Customs Act, will not amount to a terrorist act under the provisions of the UAPA. The court observed that smuggling was done for mere profit motive and that will not come under the ambit of the UAPA. Besides, the trial in the case is not likely to begin in near future and they can’t remain in jail till then, the court said in February.
The gold smuggling case surfaced in July 2020 after the seizure of 30 kg gold hidden in bathroom fittings in one of the consignments camouflaged as diplomatic baggage in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) consulate in the state capital. The case was later handed over to the National Investigation Agency and it arrested Swapna Suresh and her accomplice Sandeep Nair from Bengaluru. Five central agencies are probing the case; NIA, ED, Directorate of Revenue Intelligence, Customs and Income Tax.
The case invited much embarrassment to the left front government after the CM’s principal secretary M Sivasankar, a senior IAS officer, was arrested by the ED after his alleged liaison with Suresh surfaced. Later he secured bail from the high court.
The union and state governments locked horns several times over the case and the latter even constituted a judicial commission against the ED, a first of its sort, alleging a bid to implicate many senior leaders including CM Pinarayi Vijayan in the case. But later the HC had quashed the judicial commission.
