The Bombay high court on Thursday asked the National Investigating Agency (NIA) to ensure the presence of its special public prosecutor on the next date of hearing to reply on the bail application filed by Kalyan youth Areeb Majeed, arrested for joining ISIS.
When advocate Mubin Solkar started arguments on Majeed’s bail plea before the division bench of Justice R.V. More and Justice V.L. Achliya, an advocate on behalf of NIA requested the court to defer the hearing because special public prosecutor Aruna Kamat Pai was on a leave and only she is supposed to represent NIA in high court.
Advocate Solkar had objected to this and said the lawyer who is requesting the court to adjourn the hearing had argued on first day and had sought time to file reply. He also said Majeed’s bail application was filed in June and it has been five months since this application is pending before the court. The bench however, posted the matter for hearing on November 23 and told the NIA lawyer that if Ms Pai is not present in the court on next date of hearing then the court will not adjourn the hearing and she will have to file the reply.
The prosecution case is that Majeed along with three other youths Shaheen Tanki, Fahad Shaikh and Aman Tandel, was part of a pilgrim group from India to Iraq in May 2014, when they went missing. Majeed and the three others were suspected to have joined the Syria-based terrorist group ISIS. Majeed, initially believed to have died, was later deported to India and subsequently arrested by NIA on November 28, 2014.
