Case Title: Sadique v. State of Madhya Pradesh
In UAPA cases, the Supreme Court ruled that magistrates lacked the authority to extend the deadline for completing investigations.
According to the proviso in Section 43-D (2)(b) of the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act, the only competent authority to evaluate such a request is "the Court," as provided in the proviso.
In this case, the Chief Judicial Magistrate of Bhopal granted an extension sought by the Investigating Machinery under Section 43-D(2)(b) of the UAPA. In addition, the accused's motion for bail was denied since the Investigating Agency did not file a charge sheet within 90 days. The High Court upheld these orders, noting that because the CJM, Bhopal, had issued an appropriate order, the time available for the Investigating Machinery to complete the investigation had been extended to 180 days. Thus, the appellants' applications under Section 167(2) of the Code were not maintainable.
Senior Advocate Siddhartha Dave, who represented the accused before the Supreme Court, argued that the extension given in the instant case by CJM, Bhopal was beyond the jurisdiction and hence of no importance, citing the decision in Bikramjit Singh vs. the State of Punjab (2020).
In Bikramjit, the Supreme Court stated that all offences under the UAPA, whether probed by the National Investigation Agency or by state government investigating agencies, must be tried exclusively by Special Courts established under the National Investigation Agency Act. Under the first proviso in Section 43-D(2)(b) of the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, the Special Court alone has the competence to extend the time to 180 days, according to a three-judge bench led by Justice Rohinton Fali Nariman.
Taking note of the aforementioned decision, the bench made the following observations:
After considering various provisions of the relevant statutes, it was concluded that "so far as all offences under the UAPA are concerned, the Magistrate's jurisdiction to extend time under the first proviso in Section 43-D (2)(b) is nonexistent". Consequently, in so far as "Extension of time to complete investigation" is concerned, the Magistrate would not be competent to consider the request and the only competent authority to consider such request would be "the Court" as specified in the proviso in Section 43-D (2)(b) of the UAPA.
The court granted the appeal, ruling that the accused is entitled to default bail.