Judgment

Thomas J.—Out of twelve accused persons arraigned before a Designat­ed Court in Delhi, ten were convicted of different offences under Terrorist and Disruptive Activities (Prevention) Act 1987 (for short ‘TADA’). They are the appellants before us. Some of them were found to be members of a terrorists gang called ‘Davood Ibrahim Group.’ Three persons, including a former Union Minister of State for Power (Kalp­nath Rai) were found to have harboured hardcore terrorists, besides fastening such a finding with A12 (M/s East West Travel and Trade Links Ltd.). All of them except the company were sentenced to varying terms of imprisonment (three of them to life imprisonment) and fine ranging from Rupees ten lakhs downwards. A-12, company was sentenced to a whopping fine of Rs. fifty lakhs.

2. The incipient backdrop with events which culminated in the nabbing of five accused (A1-Subhash Singh, Thakur; A2-Jaynendra Thakur @ Bhai Thakur; A3-Shyam Kishore Garikapti; A4-Chanderkant Patil and A5-Paresh Mohan Desai) has been delineated by the prosecution by referring to three different incidents which took place during the nascent stages. The first was an incident which happened on 30.4.1