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The court said that there are no such things on records that could show that the accused have infringed the quarantine norms. The Session Court has exercised their discretion to release 18 people, out of which 11 of them are Indians and rest 7 foreigners belonging to Indonesia, who were alleged of ‘intentionally spreading’ the covid disease by participating in religious worship at Nizamuddin in Delhi. (Mohd. Ahmed v State). The court passed an order to release all the accused in Criminal Case No. 0047/2020 at P.S. Shahganj, District Prayagraj from the charge for the offenses under section 188,269,270,271 of the Indian Penal Code, Section 14(B) of the Foreigners Act and Section 3 of the Epidemic Act. It ruled while stating that the record do not mention anything which clearly states that the accused had not breached the quarantine rules.
The alleged offenses were registered against the accused under Section 188 (Disobedience to order duly promulgated by public servant),269 (Negligent act likely to spread infection of disease dangerous to life) 270 (Malignant act likely to spread infection of disease dangerous to life) and 271 (Disobedience to quarantine rule) of the Indian Penal Code, Section 3 of Epidemic Diseases Act (the penalty for an offense under section 118 of IPC) and Section 14(B) of Foreigners Act (the penalty for using forged passport). The accused were represented by Advocate Zila Jilani, who argued that there is no proof on record which could support the allegation against the accused. It was also contended that no evidence is found which could show the motive of spreading the virus knowingly.
It was observed by the court that the case diary was registered on the facts mentioned by the news channels and newspaper. The court has observed that the foreigners have visited the mosque to attend religious worship. And, the court stated that there is no restrictions on visiting the religious places for worship unless religious activities like preaching religious ideals,making speeches, distribution of audio or visual related to the religious ideologies and conversion etc. The Court has also mentioned that the visa rules were not breached by the foreigners.
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