Court denies permission to conduct NIA probe

The Superintendent of the Sub Jail, Ernakulam, reported that remand prisoner Muhammad Polakkanni tried to explain about the organisation to his fellow prisoners. Three fellow prisoners Ajish, Roshan and Shafeek gave statements to the jail authorities confirming the incident.

As the matter came up before the court, the senior prosecutor for NIA sought an order from the court to begin an investigation. The NIA prosecutor submitted that unless there was a specific direction from the court, the agency cannot conduct any investigation and hence the local police be directed to make an investigation.

While concluding that no offence was made out against the remand prisoner from the generalised statements of the fellow prisoners, NIA Special Judge K. Kamanees noted that it was not possible to take cognisance of any offence as the statements were neither any complaint of facts constituting any offence nor were police reports.

The statements also did not form any information about an offence that was committed. No investigation could be ordered in such circumstances, the court said.

However, the court noted that the police had the preliminary jurisdiction to look into the matter. The police was not procluded by any order of the court to have the statements of the prisoners recorded in detail to understand whether any offence was made out, the court noted.