The Delhi High Court on Monday rejected a plea filed by former Popular Front of India chief Erappungal Abubacker seeking to be shifted from jail to house arrest in view of his poor health, reported Live Law.
Abubacker was arrested by the National Investigation Agency on September 22 during the countrywide crackdown on the now-banned organisation.
The National Investigation Agency has booked Abubacker under Sections 120B (criminal conspiracy) and 153A (promoting enmity between groups on grounds of religion) of the Indian Penal Code, and various provisions of the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act and the National Investigation Agency Act.
In his petition to the High Court, Abubacker said that he had cancer and has also been diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease, which needed urgent medical supervision. However, the division bench of Justices Siddharth Mridul and Talwant Singh refused to put Abubacker under house arrest on grounds of ill health
“When you are asking for medical bail, why should we send you to your house?” the judges questioned, according to PTI. “We will send you to a hospital.”
The judges remarked that there was no provision in law for a house arrest and directed that Abubacker be sent to the All India Institute Of Medical Sciences under custody for an oncosurgery review on December 22, reported the news agency.
The High Court also allowed Abubacker’s son to accompany him to for consultation and treatment of cancer.
At its previous hearing, special public prosecutor Akshai Malik, appearing for the NIA had said that the 70-year-old former PFI leader was “absolutely fine,” reported The Indian Express.
Ban on Popular Front of India
The Union government on September 28 banned the Popular Front of India, along with its associates for five years under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act. The development came after the National Investigation Agency took more than 250 persons linked to the organisation under custody after raids on September 22 and September 27.
The Popular Front of India was created in 2007 through the merger of three Muslim organisations in southern India. It describes itself as an organisation that works towards “the achievement of socio-economic, cultural and political empowerment of the deprived and the downtrodden and the nation at large”.
The has been accused of being involved in terror funding, organising training camps and radicalising persons to join proscribed organisations. The Centre has claimed that some founding members of the outfit are leaders of Students Islamic Movement of India and have links with the terror group Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen Bangladesh. Both organisations are banned in India.
On October 6, the Centre had appointed Delhi High Court judge Justice Dinesh Kumar Sharma as the head of an Unlawful Activities Prevention Act Tribunal that will review the five-year ban on the Popular Front of India and its affiliate organisations.
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