NIA moves SC challenging 17 PFI members' bail in 2022 RSS leader murder case

New Delhi: The National Investigation Agency (NIA) has moved the Supreme Court challenging a Kerala High Court order which granted bail to 17 Popular Front of India (PFI) members in the 2022 murder case of RSS leader Srinivasan.

A bench of Justices Abhay S Oka and Augustine George Masih was told by Additional Solicitor General Aishwarya Bhatti, appearing for the NIA, that the agency has filed 17 separate appeals in the matter.

She informed the bench that the Kerala High Court, in its impugned order dated June 25, granted bail to the 17 accused and rejected the bail pleas of nine accused.

"We have filed 17 separate Special Leave Petitions. This court may take up all the SLPs together," she urged the bench on Friday.

The bench, which was hearing a plea of one of the accused, Saddam Hussain MK, whose bail plea was rejected by the high court, directed the registry to seek permission from Chief Justice of India (CJI) D Y Chandrachud to list all matters together.

All the accused, who were granted bail are also facing trial for allegedly instigating communal violence in Kerala as well as various other parts of the country.

The high court had passed the judgement on the pleas filed by the 26 accused against a special court's orders denying them bail.

While granting bail to 17 of the 26 accused, the high court had imposed stringent conditions on them.

They were asked to share their mobile numbers and real-time GPS locations with the investigating officer. Besides, the court asked the accused not to leave Kerala, surrender their passports and keep their mobile phones charged and active round the clock.

It had directed the 17 accused to "present themselves before the special court which shall enlarge them on bail on such conditions as the special court may deem necessary".

Initially, 51 people were arrayed as accused in connection with the murder of Srinivasan on April 16, 2022, in Palakkad district. One among those arrested died and seven are absconding.

Charge sheets against the remaining accused were filed in two phases in July and December 2022.

While police were investigating the murder, the Centre received information that office bearers and cadres of the PFI and its affiliates in Kerala had conspired to instigate communal violence and radicalise its cadres to commit terrorist acts in Kerala and various parts of the country, the high court had noted in its order.

Therefore, the Centre directed the NIA in September 2022 to take up and investigate the case against the accused.

In an order dated December 19, 2022, the Centre, referring to Srinivasan's death, said that a larger conspiracy was hatched by the leaders of the PFI "which has grave national and international ramifications" and needed to be "thoroughly investigated to unearth the wider conspiracy and to identify the other accused", the HC noted in its order.

The Centre accordingly directed the NIA to take up the probe into the murder case as well and the agency filed its consolidated charge sheet in 2023 with two supplementary charge sheets later.