SUPREME COURT REJECTS POLICE PETITION AGAINST WAHEED PARRA's BAIL

On Monday, the Supreme Court rejected a plea from the Jammu and Kashmir Police challenging the bail that PDP leader Waheed Ur Rehman Parra had been granted.

A bench of Justices Sanjay Kishan Kaul and Abhay S. Oka said: “On hearing counsel for parties, we would not like interfere with the aspect of the grant of bail but we are certainly not giving our imprimatur to any of the observations coming in the impugned order as regards the interpretation of the UAPA (Unlawful Activities (Prevention)) Act. The Special Leave Petition is dismissed with the aforesaid clarification. Pending application, if any, stands disposed of.”

The Union Territory of J&K's Solicitor General Tushar Mehta and other lawyers pleaded with the court to cancel Parra's bail.

After over a year in custody, the J&K High Court granted Parra bail in May of this year, calling the evidence presented by the J&K Police against him "sketchy." However, Para has been imprisoned for about 17 months.

The high court, in its order, observed: “Viewed from any angle, the evidence assembled by the investigating agency and relied upon by the prosecution to prosecute the appellant even if accepted as it is without any denial or rebuttal by the appellant, is not such on the basis of which the court can formulate an opinion that the allegations proved during the investigation are prima facie true.”

Parra, a trusted aide to former Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti, was arrested by the NIA in November 2020; he was released on bail in January 2021. But the Jammu and Kashmir Police's Criminal Investigation Wing (Kashmir), which has since been converted into the Special Investigation Agency, executed his arrest.