The main legal point established in the judgment is the requirement for the prosecution to present compelling evidence to establish an accused's involvement in a crime, especially in cases involving serious offenses.

JUDGMENT

V.G.BISHT,J. - Heard. Admit. By consent, heard finally at the stage of admission.

This is an appeal preferred by the applicant-accused under Sec. 21 of the National Investigation Agency Act read with Sec. 43-D(5) of Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, 1967 against the order passed below Exhibit 4 in NIA Special Case No.255 of 2021 along with Special Case No.681 of 2020 thereby rejecting the bail application.

2. Brief relevant facts are as under :

(a) C.R.No.43 of 2020 was registered by Sahar Police Station, Mumbai on 9/2/2020 under Ss. 489B, 489C, 120B and 34 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC). It is the case of prosecution that genuine Indian currency of Rs.350.00 and 1193 Fake Indian Currency Notes (FICN for short) in denomination of Rs.2,000.00 having total face value of Rs.23,86,000.00 were recovered from one Mr.Javed Gulamnabi Shaikh, who was arrested by the police on 9/2/2020. The Central Government in exercise of its powers under Sec. 6(5) read with 8 of the National Investigation Agency Act, 2008 (NIA Act for short) suo moto directed the NIA to take up the investigation and accordingly, a case came to be re-registered at NIA Police Station, Mumbai, vide RC-03/2020/NIA/MUM for alleged offences 489B, 489C, 120B and 34 of the IPC.

(b) During the course of investigation, the said recovered FICN were sent to the Currency Note Press, Nasik, for examination and opinion. Currency Note Press, Nasik, opined that the said seized FICN were "High Quality Counterfeit Notes" as the key security features as specified in the Third Schedule of the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, 1967 (UAP Act for short) had been "imitated" in the said FICN. Accordingly, Sec. 15(1)(a)(iiia) read with Ss. 16 and 18 of UAP Act were invoked.

(c) The prosecution alleges that accused Javed Gulamnabi Shaikh was smuggling said FICN in collusion with Surinder Kumar Bharose Lal @ Sardar and the said FICN were to be handed over to the appellant and one Jairam.

(d) NIA then raided the appellant's house in Jharkhand and seized mobile phone and four sim cards. The prosecution claims that during investigation appellant disclosed that he had meeting with the arrested accused in December 2019. Even mobile phone number of the appellant was stored in the mobile phone of Javed Gulamnabi Shaikh. Accused Javed Gulamnabi Shaikh, during interrogation, disclosed the name of the appellant as someone who deals with FICN.

(e) It is further alleged that appellant had sent to accused Javed Gulamnabi Shaikh a video of FICN stock from his mobile number 8406855102.

(f) Accordingly, after conclusion of investigation, a charge-sheet and supplementary charge-sheet were submitted by the NIA.

3. Mr. Mihir Desai, learned senior counsel for the appellant, after narrating the factual background of the prosecution case, put forth before us three material aspects of the prosecution case, which according to him, the prosecution is relying on. These facts are thus :

(i) that the appellant had met accused Javed Gulamnabi Shaikh

(ii) the appellant had sent a video to accused Javed Gulamnabi Shaikh which contained stock of FICN, and

(iii) an envelope recovered from PW50 that had certain counterfeit notes

4. Elaborating on these three material facts, the learned senior counsel strenuously submits that all the above noted facts were also wrongly relied on by the learned Special Judge, NIA, and on that ground, wrongly rejected the bail application. According to the learned senior counsel, there is no satisfactory evidence gathered by the NIA even to prima facie suggest that the appellant had any meeting with accused Javed Gulamnabi Shaikh in connection with the FICN. Similarly, there is no cogent and convincing evidence to show that the alleged video of FICN found in mobile phone of accused no.1 and supposedly sent by the appellant, was indeed a video of FICN.

5. The learned senior counsel then invited our attention to the statement of PW50 and pointed out how the evidence of said witness does not, i