ORDER

Petitioners are accused nos.1,2,6,7,8,10 and 12 in C.C.No.1040/2021 of the Additional Chief Judicial Magistrate Court, Ernakulam (Special Court for the Trial of Criminal cases against sitting and former MPs/MLAs of the State). They are aggrieved by Annexure-A3 order of the learned Magistrate, which refused sanction to withdraw the above case in terms of Section 321 of the Code of Criminal Procedure , only for the reason that necessary permission from the High Court, as enjoined by an interim order of the Hon’ble Supreme Court in Aswini Kumar Upadhyay v. Union of India and Another dated

10.08.2021 has not been obtained.

2. Essential facts:-

The allegation is that, the accused persons assembled in front of the office of the Lakshadweep Administration on 10.06.2021, at about 12 O’clock, without keeping social distance, thus violating the provisions of the Kerala Epidemic Disease Ordinance 2021 (for short, ‘KEDO’), and committing offence under Section 269 of Penal Code and also under Section 4(2)(e),r/w Section 5 of the KEDO.

3. Heard the learned counsel for the petitioners and the learned Public Prosecutor. Perused the records.

4. Learned counsel for the petitioner would bring to th