Mundra port drug case accused not linked to terrorism: Supreme Court

The Supreme Court on Tuesday refused to grant bail to an accused in a case pertaining to the 2,988-kg heroin consignment intercepted in Mundra port by Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI) in September 2021 [Harpreet Singh Talwar @ Kabir Talwar vs. The State of Gujarat]..However, the Bench of Justice Surya Kant and Justice N Kotiswar Singh also clarified that the accused man did not appear to be linked with any terrorist organizations.Earlier, the Court had taken note of concerns that the children of the accused were being taunted after he was wrongly linked to the recent Pahalgam terror attack during a bail hearing."Before parting with the matter, we deem it necessary to clarify that at this stage, it would be premature and speculative to extend the allegations in the domain of terror financing. While the prosecution has invoked the provision of UAPA and has broadly linked this smuggling enterprise with transnational syndicates ... there is no compelling reason to currently link the appellant with proscribed terrorist organisations even within or outside the country," the Court made it clear today. .The Court proceeded to reject accused Harpreet Singh Talwar's bail plea for the present, adding that he would be at liberty to move for bail again after six months. The Court also called for an expedited trial in the case."Bail is not warranted in present circumstances. the appellant shall be at liberty to move his plea for bail after period of six months or after substantial advancement trial, whichever is earlier," the Court ordered. .During an earlier hearing of the bail matter, Senior Advocate Aryama Sundaram, appearing for the accused, submitted that the children of the accused were being bullied in school and labelled “terrorist's children” following certain claims made by the National Investigation Agency (NIA) in court.As per media reports, the NIA had told the top court that the proceeds of the crime were “used for funding terrorist activities" of the banned Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT)..Justice Kant had then cautioned against emotional arguments from the lawyers.“This is not the issue that arises for consideration, therefore let's not unnecessarily get into it... Sometimes people are swayed by emotions while arguing cases. It happens on both sides,” he said.