A special NIA court has directed the Centre and the Bar Council of India (BCI) to inquire into the fund sources of around a dozen prominent NGOs which, it said, rush to provide legal aid to defend those accused of terrorist and anti-national activities.
The court has also asked the Union Home Ministry and the BCI to collect information regarding the collective objectives of these NGOs and take appropriate action to check them from undue interference in the judicial process.
Among the NGOs named are Citizen for Justice and Peace (Mumbai), People’s Union For Civil Liberties (New Delhi), United Against Hate (New Delhi) and Indian American Muslim Council (Washington DC).
Special NIA court judge VS Tripathi issued the directives recently while sentencing 28 convicts to life imprisonment in the Kasganj communal violence case in which a Hindu youth had died during Tiranga Yatra on Republic Day in 2018.
The court called upon the intelligentsia, institutions and stakeholders of the judicial system to look into why such NGOs jump to defend and provide legal aid to the accused of terror and anti-national activities cases, while there are already provisions in the law to provide any accused a lawyer free of cost if he is not in a position to defend himself in a court of law.
“These stakeholders should look into the role of these NGOs in the Kasganj communal violence case also,” the court said and expressed serious concern about the role of these NGOs which allegedly hired costly lawyers for the accused in this case.
“The stakeholders of the judicial system must ponder what interest these NGOs may have in a communal clash in UP’s Kasganj,” the judge said and termed it as a dangerous trend.
Rihaee Manch (Lucknow), Alliance for Justice and Accountability ( New York) and South Asia Solidarity Group( London) are also among the NGOs named in the order.
On Friday, the court had termed the violence in Kasganj in 2018 “a pre-mediated conspiracy” as it sentenced the convicts to life imprisonment for the murder of Chandan Gupta, 22, in the communal clashes on January 26, 2018, during the Tiranga yatra.
The court said the trend that several Indian or foreign-based NGOs rushed to defend the accused is promoting a very dangerous and narrow mindset regarding the judiciary and all its stakeholders.
Earlier, the public prosecutors had pointed out to the court that whenever any terror accused or persons allegedly involved in cases of anti-national activities are arrested and produced in the court, several NGOs rush to push their hired lawyers to defend the accused persons and this is done only for Muslim accused.
“This is against the original spirit of the Constitution because it boosts the morale of unwanted elements. The court should stop this trend,” the public prosecutor had said.
On the data about providing legal aid to the accused in terror and anti-national activities, the judge observed that it has often been seen in this court that whenever any accused is arrested from Jammu and Kashmir, West Bengal, Kerala, Assam, Punjab and other states in connection with terror cases, fake currency cases, waging war against India, leaking confidential information or other cases against the interest of the nation, some lawyers remain present in advance to file “Vakalatnama” on behalf of such accused in order to represent these accused.
Most of such lawyers allegedly have connections with these NGOs, the judge said.
