COMMON JUDGMENT

RMT.TEEKAA RAMAN, J.

Crl.A.No.715 of 2022 is filed by G.Dharmendran (A6), against the order passed by the Special Court for NIA Cases, rejecting his bail petition in Crl.M.P.No.231 of 2022, while Crl.A.No.716 of 2022 is filed by E.Mohan (A7) against the order of rejecting his bail petition in Crl.M.P.No.232 of 2022 dated 18.05.2022. Since the contentions raised in both the cases are common, they are taken up together, common arguments were heard and disposed of by this common judgment.

2. The facts distilled from the final report in Spl.S.C.No.01 of 2022 on the file of the Special Judge, Special Court for Trial of NIA Cases at Poonamallee, Chennai are as under:-

(a) The deceased Hamida A Lalljee (for short “Hamida”)

was having a Savings Bank Account in Indian Overseas Bank, Mumbai Fort Branch, in which, around Rs.40,00,00,000/- [Rupees Forty Crores only] was available. It appears that the said SB Account was not frequently operated. This came to the notice of the The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (for short “LTTE”), a proscribed Terrorist Organization under the Unlawful Assembly (Prevention) Act, 1967 (for short “UAP Act”) and that they decided to stealthily siphon off the said money for their organization. One Umakanthan @ Idhayan @ Charles @ Iniyan, a key LTTE operative stationed in Europe was closely monitoring the said savings bank account. On his directions, a Srilankan Tamil lady Letchumanan Mary Franciska (A1) [for short “Mary”] came to India and managed to obtain documents like Aadhaar, Pan and Indian Passport in her name. One Kenniston Fernando (A2), K.Baskaran (A3), C. Johnson Samuel (A4), G. Dharmendran (A5) and E.Mohan (A6) also joined the bandwagon at various stages of operations in order to knock-

off the money. They started to create fake Power of Attorney as if the deceased Hamida had given it in favour of A1, armed with which, they attempted to withdraw the amount from the said account of the deceased Hamida. However, before they could execute their dubious plan, misfortune fell on them when A1-Mary was intercepted at Chennai Airport on 01.10.2021 with an Indian Passport and, thereafter, she was handed over to the 'Q' Branch CID of the State Police which conducted preliminary enquiries and registered a case in Crime No.01 of 2021 for the offence under Section 12(1)(b), 12(1-A)(a) of the Passport Act, 1967 r/w 420, 465, 468, 471 IPC r/w 14(a) of Foreigners (Amendment) Act, 2004 and arrested Mary (A1) and produced before the Judicial Magistrate-I, Alandur, Chennai, who remanded her in judicial custody. Subsequently, 'Q' Branch CID altered the case in Crime No.01 of 2021 and added Section 18, 39 and 40 of the UAP Act, 1967 and filed an alteration report. Since the provisions of UAP Act were added to the FIR, the case records were transferred from the Court of the Judicial Magistrate to the Court of Principal District and Session, Chengalpattu, which is the designated court for trial under the UAP Act cases. Pursuant to the transfer of the case, the accused were produced before the Court of Session, Chengalpattu, for remand from time to time.

(b). The ninety days remand envisaged by S.167 of Cr.P.C. was to expire on 31.12.2021. Anticipating that it would not be possible to complete the investigation before the date, the Special Public Prosecutor filed a report under the first proviso to Section 43D (2) of UAP Act for the extension of the remand period. The Sessions Judge examined the report and, by order dated 03.01.2022, accepted the report of the Special Public Prosecutor and extended the remand to a further period of 90 days from 31.12.2021.

(c). Thereafter, considering the gravity of case, the Government of India, by order dated 17.01.2022, entrusted the investigation of the case to the National Investigation Agency (for short “the NIA”) which registered the case as RC-02/2022/NIA/DLI on 18.01.2022 u/s 120-B, 465, 467, 468, 471, 472 & 474 of IPC, Sections 10, 13, 38 & 39 of the UAP Act, 1967 , Sect