Blow to Akhilesh govt! No withdrawal of terror cases, says HC

The Allahabad high court on Friday stayed the Uttar Pradesh government's order to withdraw cases against persons accused of indulging in terror activities.

The order was passed by justices Rajeev Sharma and Mahendra Dayal of the Lucknow bench on a public interest litigation filed by local lawyer Ranjana Agnihotri and five others.

While referring the matter to a larger bench, the court gave six weeks time to the respondents, including the central and the state governments, for filing their reply and four weeks for rejoinder thereafter.

The petitioners had sought direction for quashing the order issued by the state for withdrawing cases against persons accused of indulging in terror activities and serial blasts. The court directed that the order for withdrawing the cases against the alleged terror accused shall be kept in abeyance.

Appearing on behalf of the UP government, Additional Advocate General Bulbul Godiyal submitted that the PIL was not maintainable as earlier a similar petition was dismissed by the Allahabad bench. She submitted that the Centre's permission was not required for withdrawing the cases.

On behalf of the petitioner's counsel, H S Jain opposed the submission of the state government and said sanction from the central government was certainly required for withdrawing the cases.

As directed by the bench on the earlier date, the entire record of alleged terror accused was not produced by the state government and only a list of their names was submitted with the affidavit.

The court had on Wednesday last directed the state to file an affidavit of alleged terrorist whose cases were recently withdrawn and whether the consent of the central government has been taken or not for the same.

The petitioners have sought direction from the court for quashing the order issued by the state for withdrawing cases against persons accused of alleged terrorist activities and serial blasts after summoning the original order from the opposite parties.

The petitioners have also challenged the validity of Section 321 of the CrPC (provision for withdrawing the cases).