Guwahati: Leader of Raijor Dal and an MLA from Sivasagar in Assam Akhil Gogoi is scheduled to appear before a National Investigation Agency (NIA) court on Thursday in relation to a case that was brought against him during the anti-Citizenship (Amendment) Act demonstrations in Assam.
The Assam government has already asked the Gauhati High Court to investigate the Akhil Gogoi case. The high court instructed the NIA court to reopen the case in light of the appeal.
It should be recalled that the Supreme Court had previously ordered against additional arrests of Akhil Gogoi in connection with the subject while the case was still pending.
Supreme Court protected Sivasagar Legislator Akhil Gogoi from arrest in connection with the anti-CAA protests case and possible Maoist ties and it also asked the NIA for a response to his petition on Tuesday.
Akhil Gogoi has filed a petition with the Supreme Court challenging the Gauhati High Court’s decision on February 9 allowing the special NIA court in Assam to move through with filing charges against him in one of the two instances.
A bench consisting of justices V Ramasubramanian and Pankaj Mithal noted, “Let notice be served on the standing counsel for the State (NIA), for the limited purpose of considering the grant of protection to the petitioner from arrest pursuant to the impugned order, returnable on February 24, 2023. In the meantime, the petitioner ( Akhil Gogoi) shall be protected against arrest in connection with FIR bearing … dated December 14, 2019, Police Station NIA, Guwahati.”
In relation to anti-CAA protests and suspected Maoist ties, the high court had granted the NIA permission to ask that charges be filed in the special court against Akhil Gogoi and three of his accomplices, Dhajya Konwar, Manas Konwar and Bitu Sonowal. The decision was made as a result of the NIA’s appeal of a special NIA court’s decision to clear the four.
After reviving the case, the high court panel made up of justices Suman Shyam and Malasri Nandi instructed the prosecution to proceed with filing charges against Akhil Gogoi and the others.
Akhil Gogoi’s counsel Santanu Borthakur had said, “The high court has accepted NIA’s plea to reopen the case and frame charges against the four persons. The case will be heard again in the Special NIA Court.”
The other three defendants, who had received bail in the NIA case, were released from custody in the interim. After serving 567 days in prison, Akhil Gogoi was finally freed when the court refused his bail and a special NIA judge absolved him and the other three of all charges.
Akhil Gogoi was among the four who had been ordered to appear today before the special NIA court. Two instances involving Akhil Gogoi and anti-CAA demonstrations are being investigated by the NIA. In one of those cases, the special NIA court had granted him bail; the Gauhati High Court had also upheld it in April 2021.
As the NIA was looking at Akhil Gogoi’s request for bail in the second case involving violence at anti-CAA protests, he remained to be held in judicial custody. Akhil Gogoi and his three friends were freed on July 1st, 2021, by the special NIA court for their alleged involvement in the violent anti-CAA protests in Assam in December 2019.
The court found that Akhil Gogoi’s “talk of blockage” was neither “a terrorist act” nor a threat to the nation’s economic security. The NIA court then requested permission from the Gauhati High Court to file an appeal, enabling the agency to file charges against Akhil Gogoi under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act’s (UAPA) sedition and other provisions.
In a strongly worded ruling, the special NIA court stated that, in the interest of justice, it regarded the conduct and strategy of the investigative authority in the case to be, at the the least, “discouraging.”
The order read, “The court has high expectations from a premier investigating agency like the NIA, entrusted with the profoundly important task of protecting our country and us, citizens from the menace of terrorism. The court hopes and expects that such high standards will be upheld, for the sake of the country and this one will be just an exception.”