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The Jharkhand High Court has granted bail to Mahesh Agarwal, former Managing Director of Adhunik Power Limited, accused of terror funding. Court has directed the NIA court to decide the condition of bail.

The bench of Justice Rongon Mukhopadhyay and Justice Rajesh Kumar passed the order on a criminal appeal filed by Agarwal assailing the NIA court order dated February 26, 2022 whereby he was denied bail in the instant case. 

Agarwal was arrested by the National Investigation Agency (NIA) in January this year from Salt Lake of Kolkata on charges of providing financial help to the militant organizations in the Magadha Amrapali Project in Jharkhand. Agrawal is currently lodged in Birsa Munda Central Jail.

As per the order, in 2016 a piece of secret information was received by the Superintendent of Police that in the Amrapali Magadh Coal area in Tandwa some local people have formed an association which is related to the banned extremist outfit Tritiya Prastuti Committee (TPC). The members of such association were extracting levies from transporters and mining companies by creating fear in the name of the extremists of TPC.

Thereafter, a case was registered and Agarwal was issued notice by the NIA in 2019 in it. After conducting further investigation a second supplementary charge sheet was submitted by the NIA in which Agarwal was arrayed as an accused for committing offences punishable under Section 120B of the IPC read with Section 17 of the UAP Act, 1967 and substantive offences under Sections 17 and 18 of the UAP Act, 1967, Section 17 of the CLA Act, 1908 and Section 201 of the IPC. 

The NIA had alleged that in the said area the terror funding through a sophisticated method was going on for the past many years and Agrawal and others were in active collaboration with TPC in raising and funding terrorist activities.

Before the high court, Dr. Abhishek Manu Singhvi, the Senior Counsel for Agarwal argued that Agarwal is based at Kolkata and is not operational in Jharkhand and he himself is a victim of extortion threats which has been misconstrued by the NIA by accusing the appellant of being involved in terror funding.

He submitted that Agarwal was not named in the First Information Report lodged by the Police nor in the charge sheet submitted on March 10, 2016. He added that on April 12, 2017, the provisions of the UAP Act were inserted and Agarwal's name still did not figure and even in the first supplementary charge sheet submitted by NIA.

Singhavi further contended that the charge sheet filed in the case contains 185 witnesses, 131 documents and 66 material exhibits and therefore it can be presumed that it will take ages to conclude the trial while Agarwal continues to languish in custody since January18, 2022 and considering the entire scenario,he deserved the privilege of bail.

Court, on consideration of the entire facets of the case, come to the conclusion that there were no reasonable grounds for believing that the accusations against Agarwal were prima facie true and as a consequence, Court granted him bail. 

Case Title: Mahesh Agarwal v. Union of India through National Investigation Agency (NIA)