More than three decades after criminal proceedings were instituted in the aftermath of the Babri Masjid demolition, a Special NIA Court in Lucknow has acquitted 78-year-old Mohammed Naeem, holding that the prosecution failed to establish the charges against him beyond reasonable doubt.
Additional District and Sessions Judge/Special Judge (NIA) Umakant Jindal acquitted Naeem of offences under Sections 295A, 124A and 153B of the Indian Penal Code, pertaining respectively to deliberate and malicious acts intended to outrage religious feelings, sedition and imputations prejudicial to national integration.
The prosecution case arose from an incident allegedly occurring on January 26, 1993, in Gorakhpur’s Ismailpur locality, in the aftermath of the demolition of the Babri Masjid. Police personnel deployed for Republic Day security arrangements allegedly noticed Naeem and others displaying black flags from residential premises and raising slogans including “Pakistan Zindabad” and “Ganatantra Diwas Murdabad”.
The prosecution further alleged that the accused had raised slogans calling for the creation of another Pakistan and that the conduct in question was prejudicial to India’s sovereignty and territorial integrity.
After scrutinising the evidentiary record, however, the Special Court found that the prosecution had failed to establish the foundational facts necessary to sustain the charges.
The Court noted that the prosecution witnesses themselves stated that the alleged slogan-shouters had fled the location before the police party arrived. Against this backdrop, the prosecution could not satisfactorily establish how the accused was identified as one of the persons allegedly involved in the incident.
A significant infirmity identified by the Court concerned the investigation itself. The investigating officer had initially submitted a final report in 2003, recording that the case had become stale with the passage of time and that the available material was insufficient to warrant a trial.
Although the final report was not ultimately accepted and a chargesheet was filed in 2005, the investigating officer who subsequently took up the matter conceded during cross-examination that he had never visited the alleged place of occurrence or recorded statements there.
The officer acknowledged that the chargesheet had been submitted entirely on the basis of material collected by the previous investigating officer.
The Court found this circumstance material to the assessment of the prosecution’s case, particularly since no fresh evidentiary material had been gathered before the chargesheet was presented.
The evidentiary deficiencies did not end there. The prosecution case substantially relied upon the alleged recovery of black flags from the accused. Yet, the purportedly recovered flags were never produced before the Court, nor was the corresponding recovery memo brought on record as substantive evidence.
The Court also took note of the testimony of a police constable associated with the alleged recovery. The witness conceded that the black flag purportedly seized during investigation was not produced before the Court either during examination-in-chief or cross-examination, and that he could not state where it was.
The absence of the alleged material object assumed significance in the context of the prosecution’s burden to establish the factual substratum of the offences beyond reasonable doubt.
On an overall assessment of the evidence, the Court concluded that the prosecution had failed to prove that Naeem had assembled at the alleged location, displayed black flags or raised the specific slogans attributed to him.
The prosecution was likewise unable to establish that Naeem had made statements or engaged in conduct capable of attracting the penal provisions invoked against him, including the allegations concerning threats to the sovereignty and integrity of India.
Consequently, the Court held that the prosecution had not discharged the burden of proof required for a criminal conviction and extended the benefit of reasonable doubt to the accused.
The acquittal brings to a close a criminal prosecution that remained pending for approximately 33 years, leaving Naeem to face the proceedings from the age of around 45 until he reached 78.
The decision once again underscores the fundamental criminal-law principle that suspicion, however grave, cannot substitute legally admissible and reliable evidence. Where the prosecution fails to establish the identity of the accused, the occurrence attributed to him, and the essential ingredients of the charged offences through cogent evidence, a conviction cannot be sustained.
In the present case, the Court found the evidentiary chain materially deficient, including on the questions of identification, investigation, recovery and attribution of the alleged slogans. The resulting failure to prove the accusations beyond reasonable doubt ultimately warranted Naeem’s acquittal.
Case Title: State of Uttar Pradesh v. Naeem
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