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The Supreme Court has set aside the bail granted to J&K businessman “Zahoor Ahmad Shah Watali” in terror funding case by the Delhi High court. The allegations against Watali, is that he had acted as a conduit for transfer of funds received from terrorists Hafiz Muhammad saeed, ISI, Pakistan High commission, new Delhi and also from a source in Dubai, to Hurriyat leaders and terrorists helped them in waging war against the Government of India by repeated attacks on security forces and Government establishments and by damaging police property including by burning schools and many other offences. He was charged for offences punishable under sections 120B, 121 and 121A of the Indian penal code and sections 13,16,17,18,20,38,39 and 40 of the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, 1967. The bench has observed while setting aside the High court order that the totality of the material gathered by the Investigating agency and presented along with the report is required to be reckoned.
The bench observed by taking note of the material record on the case that:
“In our opinion, taking into account the totality of the report made under section 173 of the Code and the accompanying documents and the evidence /materials already presented to the court including the redacted statement of the protected witness recorded under section 164 of the code, there are reasonable grounds to believe that the accusations made against the respondent are prima facie true .Be it noted, further investigation is in progress. The High Court ought to have taken into account the totality of the material and evidence on record as it is and ought not to have discarded as being inadmissible. The High court clearly overlooked the settled legal position that at the stage of considering the prayer necessary to weigh the material, but only to form opinion on the basis of the material before it on broad probabilities .The court is expected to apply its mind to ascertain whether the accused are prim facie true .Indeed, in present case, we are not called upon to consider the prayer for cancellation of bail as such but no examine the correctness of the approach of the High Court in granting bail to the accused despite the material and evidenced indicating that accusations made against him are prima facie true.
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