Court acquits 3 men in 2016 MCOCA case

New Delhi, Oct 22 (PTI) A court here has acquitted three men booked under provisions of the Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act (MCOCA) in 2016, saying the stringent act was wrongly invoked.

This is the second instance within six days that Additional Sessions Judge Pulastya Pramachala has acquitted all accused in a MCOCA case, while questioning the basis on which the stringent provisions were invoked.

The first decision came on October 15 when the judge tore to shreds a 2013 MCOCA case against three brothers and acquitted them, observing that the Delhi Police failed to fulfil the legal provisions to invoke the act and prosecute them for committing organised crime.

The second judgement was announced on Monday when the court was hearing a case against Ishwar, Sukhmeet Singh and Gaurav Sharma. The Bhajanpura police station had registered a case under MCOCA provisions for committing organised crime.

The court said that to invoke the MCOCA, it was necessary to establish that an organised crime was committed and that the offence was a "continuing unlawful activity".

"Furthermore, this activity should have been undertaken either singly or jointly as a member of an organised crime syndicate or on behalf of such syndicate and further, in respect of this activity, in the preceding period of 10 years, more than one chargesheet should have been filed before a court, which had taken cognisance of the offence," the court said.

It said that the preceding 10 years had to be counted from the third instance of organised crime being committed to invoke MCOCA.

Noting the chargesheets before it in the case, the court said, "The prosecution did not refer to any specific third instance of organised crime..." It said that even if it was assumed that the past cases against the accused pertained to organised crimes, there was no evidence of the latest or third instance of the crime.

"Therefore, I find that this case is based on a wrong foundation and notion of law," the judge said.

He said that the sanction for registration of FIR was accorded without ensuring that the requisite conditions to invoke the MCOCA were fulfilled.

"The same is my finding with respect to sanctions accorded for the prosecution of the accused persons, for the same reasons that the sanctioning authority did not correctly appreciate requisite legal conditions for invoking MCOCA, before according sanction. Hence, I have no second thoughts to say that all these sanctions were also invalid," the judge said.

The court said that when the case lacked the necessary conditions to invoke MCOCA, there was no question of considering the confessional statement of the accused.

Section 18 of the MCOCA makes a confession statement admissible as evidence in courts.

"Accused ... are acquitted of all the charges levelled against them in this case," the court said. PTI MNR MNR TIR TIR