Supreme Court: After Solicitor General Tushar Mehta submitted before the bench of AM Khanwilkar and Dinesh Maheshwari that as of today only ten petitioners in the Tablighi Jamaat case have decided to contest the criminal cases pending against them and are not willing to exercise the option of plea bargaining, the Bench directed that the criminal cases concerning these ten petitioners pending in different Trial Courts in the NCT of Delhi be brought before the same Court i.e. to the Chief Metropolitan Magistrate, South-East Delhi, Saket Court Complex, Saket, so that all the cases can be disposed of expeditiously. It further directed the said Court to dispose of all the cases expeditiously preferably within eight weeks from today.
SG also submitted before the Court that if the concerned petitioners tender apology, as envisaged by the Madras High Court in the concerned criminal case, the said petitioners can be permitted to leave India despite the pendency of the criminal case but subject to such orders that may be passed by the concerned Trial Court.
He also told that Court that the look out notices issued against the petitioner(s) before this Court stand withdrawn and that the concerned petitioner(s) will be free to leave India subject to any other pending proceedings including order passed by the Court requiring his/her presence in the stated proceedings.
The Court has listed the matter after 8 weeks.
Petitioners who are foreign nationals were arrested by respondent police on the ground that they had engaged in religious activities in breach of visa conditions. They defied COVID-19 lockdown norms as were imposed by the Government. In the norms, religious places were ordered for closure, yet the petitioners allegedly stayed inside the mosques in groups by defying the norms laid down by the Government.
Thus, in view of the above stated reasons, FIRs were lodged against the petitioners for committing offences under Section 13 and 14 of the Foreigners Act, 2014, Sections 188, 269, 270, 271 and 278 of IPC, Section 3 of Epidemic Diseases Act 1897, Section 58(4), 134, 135 of the Tamil Nadu Public Health Act, 1939 and Section 51(b) of the Disaster Management Act, 2005.
Madras High Court had, in it’s June 12 order said that the petitioners had come to India to serve the cause of their religion. Circumstances suddenly turned adverse and landed them in prison. They have spent more than 70 days in what are truly difficult conditions.
“Merely because the petitioners have contravened the visa conditions, they cannot be seen as criminals.”
[Maulana Ala Hadrami v. Union of India, 2020 SCC OnLine SC 629, order dated 06.08.2020]
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