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TheIndian EXPRESS

NATIONAL NETWORK

MONDAY I OCTOBER 1 I 2012

SHAM PROBE, TRIALS OF ERROR

SCARE
PART V
MUZAMIL JALEEL
NEW DELHI, SEPTEMBER 30

The SIMI

FRONT FOR SIMI

A maulana, his sons and associates find themselves in and out of jails
dress frequently at the centre of any terror investigation in Hyderabad. At the time of Billas arrest, the Hyderabadpolicehadclaimedthatitwasin connection with two rioting cases registered against him, in 2004 (an incident involvingthedeathofhisbrother)andin 2007 (for terror conspiracy and sedition, registered at the Gopalapurram police station). Hyderabad police had booked 21 Muslim youths including Billa for a terror conspiracy and subsequently linked them to the Mecca Masjid blasts. Billa and the other accused were acquitted on December 31, 2008. The Mecca Masjid blast case finally took a new turn after Swami Aseemanands confession in December 2010, which implied that these Muslim men had all been wrongly blamed. Eighty-two Muslim men had been picked up, interrogated or booked and all were subsequently acquitted. In May this year, Billa was again named, this time in four cases of rioting and disturbance of peace, and shown as an absconding accused. These recent cases were registered one after another in a single day, said Billa, who recently earned a B Tech degree. They have shown me as absconding, which means, You can go on with your life till we want to take you away again. THE 2004 rioting case against Billa, in fact, provides the context to this entire story. That October 31, Naseeruddin had gone to the DGPs office along with his lawyer and a few other people to sign his weekly attendance, necessary because of an earlier case of communal violence. Two months earlier, I had been arrested after police claimed I was going to plant bombs in a Ganesh temple. This absurd allegation came as a shock; I fell ill and was shifted to hospital. Our lawyer friends secured bail; this weekly attendance was a condition, Naseeruddin said. That day, I reached the office late. My son-in-law Khalid, who is a lawyer, and a few others accompanied me. The CID officer who would take told me he had to be taken to a psychiatrist, Naseeruddin said. After some time, he went for Umrah (pilgrimage to Saudi Arabia). He went missing for one-and-a-half years. During that time, he had gone to Pakistan for arms training. We had no clue, he said. We heard about him only when the Bangalore police arrested him (in 2008). He said his two elder sons, Maqeemuddin Yasir and Baleeguddin Jabir, were framed. Yasir has three children and was the manager of our workshop while Jabir was a third year student at Deccan Engineering College. The police accused them of being involved in the Mecca Masjid and other blasts and arrested them, a year after the blasts, he said. They couldnt show even a bit of evidence but didnt release them. They were shifted to Madhya Pradesh where their names had been included in a SIMI case in Dhar. They had never been to Dhar. He said for the next few years, their case didnt move. The case was shifted to Indore where the trial concluded earlier this month; both were acquitted... This country is our home too. Why is there no justice for us? ON JANUARY 30, 2008, according to Satyapaa Sambha Khote, then DSP, Special Enquiry Squad, Bangalore, a youth named Mohd Asif was stopped by an inspector of Gokul Road police station, Hubli, for speeding with his motorcycle. It was found that he did not have documents of the motorcycle. Hence the PI (inspector) seized the vehicle and filed a case, Khote said. Investigations allegedly revealed Asifs involvement with SIMI. The policemade18morepeopleaccusedon March 20, 2008, including Raziyuddin Nasir. In the affidavit, Khote claimed that Asif, a medical student at Hubli, and two other accused had met in Castle Rock, Haliyal Road farmhouse, and SoudattiRoadDargainthelastweekof April2008,aimedinter-aliaatIslamisation of the world by means of Jihad. According to Khote, the three held another conspiracy meeting at Castle Rock in November 2007 where they decided to damage the sovereignty of the government of India and to ignite antinational sentiments... ultimately changing the elected sovereign government and establishing Islamic government. Khote went on to give a long list of their targets Kaiga nuclear plant, Infosys in Bangalore, Dell, IBM etc. For this mammoth task, they were apparently armed with four countrymade revolvers three of these rusted and defunct and homemade grenades with gelatin sticks. Khote produced a confessional statement by Nasir to Karnataka police, admitting he had gone to Pakistan for arms training. In the statement, Nasir says he was disillusioned after his fathers arrest and the death of our family friend Mujahid Saleem during the protest. Nasir was later booked in the 2008 Ahmedabad blasts case and is currently in Sabarmati jail in Gujarat. In his affidavit filed on June 11, 2010, inspector Devender said that after Billas arrest on March 5, 2008, the women of Billas family whom Devender calls SIMI support militant ladies led by Billas sister Huma Islahi and Maulana Naseeruddins wife Tasneem Fatima had attacked the police station. Thirty women and children were rounded up in March 2008, including one with her seven-year-old daughter. Seven of them were students, 15 aged 19. Nine of the women were sent by the court for age determination tests to check if they were minors. While most of the women were from Billas family or his neighbours and there was nothing to link them to SIMI, the affidavit called it a rare case in entire India where SIMI militant activists organised their lady activists and... assaulted police. Devender admitted that investigation records do not show these women as SIMI members. This is as per my knowledge while working in the department and as per intelligence sources, he said.

When ISI became a

N the circles of polices SIMI investigations, the name Maulana Naseeruddin comes up often. Sometimes he has been charged, sometimes his sons, sometimes his acquaintances. In one such case against an associate of his son, the Hyderabad police filed an affidavit before the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Tribunal calling Pakistans ISI a front of SIMI. Asked by the tribunal to explain his claim, P Devender, then inspector in Saidabad police station, reiterated that it is correct that in my affidavit when I referred to Inter Service Intelligence, I am referring to Inter Service Intelligence of Pakistan and that the nodal officer of Andhra Pradesh will be filing a secret note on the basis of which this statement has been made. DEVENDERS affidavit, filed on June 11, 2010, was part of the governments evidence to justify the continuance of the ban on SIMI. To substantiate his claim that SIMI was functioning under various fronts like the ISI, Devender cited a case registered in March 2008 at the Saidabad police station when he was an inspector there. It concerned Moutasim Billa, 22, of Jevan Yar Jung Colony, Saidabad, who had been arrested on March 5, 2008, from near his residence. Devender claimed that Billa was arrested because he had been booked in an FIR (198/2007) at the Gopalapurram police station. Devender also called him a close associate of the son of Maulana Naseeruddin, who is a SIMI activist. Naseeruddin and Billas father, Mohammad Aleem Islahi, are well-known clerics in Saidabad and their families used to be close then. Along with Naseeruddins, Islahis is the other ad-

THE WOMEN

MOUTASIM BILLA

PRADEEP YADAV

MAULANA NASEERUDDIN

my signature asked me to wait, saying a senior officer wanted to talk to me. Naseeruddin said he was taken to the IG, who told him a warrant for his arrest had come from Gujarat. A contingent of Guajarat Police led by then ACP Narendera Amin (now in jail over the murder of Sohrabuddin and Kousar Bi in a fake encounter) were waiting for Naseeruddin, accused of a role in (former Gujarat minister) Haren Pandyas murder. People from our neighbourhood collected outside the gate, Naseeruddin said. They didnt allow the Gujarat police vehicle to leave and there was a scuffle. Narendra Amin opened fire. Mujahid Saleem, 26, Billas elder brother, was killed, protests followed, and the Andhra government promised amagisterialinquirybesidesfilingacase against Gujarat police. Police registered a case of rioting against Billa, too.

The maulana was taken to Gujarat and was initially arrested on charges of instigating Pandyas killers, and subsequently booked in the Ahmedabad conspiracy case an alleged conspiracy to avenge the Gujarat riots. On January 12, 2010, a designated POTA court acquitted the maulana along with others and he was released. A lot had happened during those five years. My three sons had all been arrested, Naseeruddin said. He said the two elder sons were framed but added that the youngest, without the familys knowledge, had gone to Pakistan for arms training. When the Gujarat police shot Mujahid Saleem, my youngest son Raziyuddin Nasir was there. He saw Saleem die. This affected him deeply. When I was in jail in Gujarat, my wife

THE YOUNGEST SON

THE MAULANAS SONS

The courtrooom cast after presidential reference

THE JUDGES WHO DELIVERED THE SCS OPINION ON THE PRESIDENTIAL REFERENCE ON THE 2G VERDICTS IMPLICATIONS; THE LAWYERS (AND THE POLITICIAN-LITIGANT) WHO ARGUED ON EITHER SIDE. MANEESH CHIBBER REPORTS THE BENCH
The law-clerk-who-rose-to-become-the-CJI, Justice Kapadia retired last week. A reformist, Kapadia will be remembered for judgments by his bench that went a long way towards providing a level playing field for foreign companies doing business in India. Cases in point are the Vodafone tax case and the Balco case dealing with arbitration involving foreign companies and their Indian partners/government.

S H KAPADIA

Justice Jain, who retires in January next year, is the judge who authored the 145-page majority opinion that was delivered on Thursday. Jain, the third senior-most judge of the Supreme Court, was also part of the Constitution bench that decided the Balco case.

D K JAIN

The soft-spoken judge, who is in line to take over as countrys first Sikh CJI in January 2017, is known for his grasp of constitutional issues. While the main part of the opinion in the presidential reference was authored by Justice Jain, Justice Khehar wrote a further 63 pages that, among various things, categorically said that no part of the natural resource can be dissipated as a matter of largess, charity, donation or endowment, for private exploitation.

JAGDISH SINGH KHEHAR

POLITICIAN-LITIGANT

A former chief justice of Punjab and Haryana High Court, Justice Gogoi is in line to succeed Justice Dipak Misra as CJI in October 2018, the first one from the Northeast. GOOLAM E VAHANVATI The Attorney General carried out the task of convincing the five-judge bench that the presidential reference was maintainable in law. To stress the need to improve the investment climate, Vahanvati quoted US President Barack Obamas remarks on the issue of FDI in India, telling the court that the country would become a laughing stock if auction was made the only route for allocation of natural resources. Why will anybody come to India if it is going to be challenged in the Supreme Court (if any other method is adopted for allocating resources)? Vahanvati said, a stand that found support from industry bodies such as CII and FICCI. It was Vahanvati who told the court that revenue maximisation could not be the sole objective in allocating natural resources. SOLI SORABJEE Appearing for the Centre for Public Interest Litigation, the Constitution expert and former attorney general raised the issue of the reference being an attempt by the government to question the correctness of the judgment by a two-judge bench in the 2G case. Under the garb of the presidential reference, you (government) are seeking to question the correctness of the judgment and seeking to overrule the judgment which has reached its finality, Sorabjee said in court. PRASHANT BHUSHAN The activist-lawyer, who was instrumental in getting the court to set aside the 122 2G licences allotted by the A Raja-headed telecom ministry, opposed the presidential reference. He told the court that while the government clearly understood that the 2G judgment had laid down the procedure to be followed while alienating precious natural resources, it was trying to use the advisory jurisdiction of the court as an appeal against the 2G decision. During a hearing in July, Bhushan told the court that the governments objective in filing the reference was to continue with this opaque, non-competitive and arbitrary method of allocation of natural resources and contended this malafide reference should be rejected. However, CJI Kapadia remarked that the court couldnt reject the reference on the ground that it was malafide and misleading. T R ANDHYARUJINA He represented the Federation of Indian Mineral Industries. While raising the issue of apparent conflict between provisions of the statutes and the 2G judgment, he asked the bench to dispel all uncertainties regarding the position of law. Andhyarujina told the court that apart from its direction that spectrum should be sold by way

RANJAN GOGOI

A former chief justice of Delhi High Court, Justice Misra will be the CJI after Justice Khehar. He is currently part of the bench hearing the Koodankulam nuclear plant matter. of auction, the other observations made in the 2G judgment was obiter and per incuriam and the court could overrule the verdict in its advisory jurisdiction. HARISH SALVE He argued that the under the Constitution, the President can seek an opinion from the court on any question of law or fact that has arisen, or is likely to arise, adding that there is no additional condition that there should be any doubt in the mind of the President. Appearing for CII, Salve asserted the 2G verdict was specific to spectrum allocation and it couldnt be applied to all natural resources. He said allocation of natural resources should be decided case by case. C S SUNDRAM The counsel for FICCI urged the bench to respond favourably to the presidential reference, saying the opinion of the apex court would clear the uncertainty prevailing in the industry over the issue of allocation of natural resources. He told the court that the 2G verdict had international implications and that the court had entered the domain of policy-making by holding the firstcome-first-served policy illegal. DARIUS KHAMBATA The Maharashtra advocate general told the court the observations by the twojudge bench in the 2G judgment were made only with regard to spectrum, thereby leaving it open to the fivejudge bench to examine the issue with regard to alienation of other natural resources. Pointing to some state laws, which provide for methods other than auction, he urged the court to say the 2G judgment doesnt pertain to alienation of all natural resources through auction only.

DIPAK MISRA

The Janata Party chief, who was one of the petitioners in the 2G case and argued in person, told the bench that the presidential reference was yet another attempt to delay the implementation of the directions in the 2G case.

SUBRAMANIAN SWAMY

THE LAWYERS

SUNIL GUPTA Appearing for Uttar Pradesh, the senior advocate said the issue of a reference being maintainable at the instance of the President was different from the judicial power of the court to answer or not to answer the questions posed in the reference. RAVINDRA SHRIVASTAVA Arguing for Chhattisgarh, he told the bench that neither history supports nor reality warrants auction to be a rule of disposal of all natural resources in all situations. The counsel for the BJP-ruled state said the state must be allowed the choice of methodology of allocation, especially in cases where it intends to incentivise investments and job creation in backward regions that would otherwise have been left untouched by private players if resources were given at market prices.