While considering the appeals, High Court primarily focused on the prosecution material that apply commonly to all the accused one among which was a printed document titled “India 2047 – Towards Rule of Islam in India” which was stated to be an “internal document”.
The Court observed that it spoke of the present state of the Muslim community in India, and projected a vision for the year 2047 that sees the establishment of an Islamic government in India. The Court added that the means by which the documents author stated that this objective can be achieved was mostly covert and violent.
However, the Court noted that there is no authorship attributed to anyone in the document; yet the prosecution proceeded on the assumption that all the appellants subscribed to its views.
Another common piece of evidence was a voice clip recovered from a mobile phone but the Court noted that there was scientific evidence linking the voice with that of any of the other accused.
After analysing all the other prosecution material as well, the Court concluded that the threshold envisaged under Section 43D (5) of the UAPA for denial of bail, would apply to only 9 of the appellants.
Therefore, it dismissed the appeals of those 9 appellants including Abdul Sathar who was the Kerala general secretary of PFI.
Source: Barandbench
