Apex Court Upholds High Court's Order Clearing Former Assam CM From Charges Of Secret Killing Of Relatives Of ULFA Militants
|The Supreme Court in a Special Leave Petition, has refused to interfere with the Gauhati High Court’s order where while rejecting an Interlocutory Application filed for condoning of 531 days in filing the writ appeal, had upheld its five-year-old order that cleared former Chief Minister of Assam, Prafulla Kumar Mahanta from charges of “secret killing” of relatives of ULFA militants at the time of his tenure.
The interlocutory application before the High Court was filed by Rajya Sabha MP from Assam Ajit Kumar Bhuyan and Ananta Kalita who survived an assassination attempt (was shot in the head) on September 18, 1999, for his alleged association with ULFA militants under Section 5 of the Limitation Act challenging the Gauhati High Court’s judgement dated September 3, 2018.
A bench of Justice B.R. Gavai and Justice Prashant Kumar Mishra heard the matter.
Senior Advocate Colin Gonsalves appeared for the petitioners.
In the present matter, the said applicants challenged the order passed by the court in the year 2018, whereby an inquiry commission report indicting Mahanta of "extrajudicial killings" was held to be invalid.
The applicants before the High Court, had contended that they were not arraigned in the writ petition and thus were genuinely and bonafide prevented from filing the appeal in time. Further, the applicants try to persuade the Court to go into the merits of the matter by examining the impugned judgment.
The High Court in the above context had noted that the petitioners had filed the interlocutory application 531 days after its earlier verdict besides making 'inconsistent and contradictory pleadings in the three affidavits'.
A Division Bench of Chief Justice Sandeep Mehta and Justice Mitali Thakuria had thus observed, “Keeping in view the observations made above, it is apparent that not only have the applicants failed to convincingly explain the gross delay of 531 days occasioned in filing of the appeal but they have also made inconsistent and contradictory pleadings in the three affidavits. It may further be noted that the applicants, directly approached the Hon'ble Supreme Court for assailing the order dated 03.09.2018 rendered by the learned Single Bench. The said SLP was withdrawn on 18.12.2020 with liberty to file a writ appeal before the High Court but while doing so, no prayer was made on behalf of the applicants to seek any leniency on condonation of delay in filing the writ appeal in this Court”.
Accordingly, the Apex Court while refusing to interfere with the impugned order of the High Court, disposed of the special leave petition.
Cause Title: Ananta Kalita & Anr. v. Prafulla Kumar Mahanta & Ors.
Click here to read/download the Order