SC rejects UP's plea against HC order granting protection from arrest to Mukhtar Ansari's sons

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New Delhi: The Supreme Court Wednesday dismissed a plea filed by the Uttar Pradesh government against the Allahabad High Court's interim order granting protection from arrest to two sons of gangster-turned-politician Mukhtar Ansari in an alleged forgery case.

A bench of Justices Ashok Bhushan and R S Reddy said it is not inclined to entertain the petition filed by the state against the October 21, 2020 order of the high court.

"This special leave petition is filed against the interim order dated October 21, 2020, passed by the high court, by which the high court directed that till the next date of listing, the petitioners shall not be arrested in connection with the First Information Report dated August 27, 2020," the bench said in its order.

"We have also been informed that the writ petition in which the impugned interim order has been passed is listed tomorrow before the high court. In view of the above fact, we are not inclined to entertain the special leave petition. The special leave petition is, accordingly, dismissed. We make it clear that we have not expressed any opinion on the merits of the case," the bench said.

Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, appearing for Uttar Pradesh, referred to a subsequent order of February 17 this year passed by the high court which had dismissed a separate petition filed by Mukhtar Ansari.

The Lucknow bench of the Allahabad High Court had passed the interim order in October last year and directed that petitioners before it, Abbas Ansari and Umar Ansari, shall not be arrested in the case lodged in Lucknow for the alleged offences under various sections of the Indian Penal Code, including cheating, using as genuine a forged document and under the Prevention of Damage to Public Property Act, 1984.

It had made clear that investigation in the case shall go on and the petitioners before it would fully cooperate with the investigating agency.

Mukhtar Ansari, an MLA from Mau constituency in Uttar Pradesh, is presently lodged in Rupnagar district jail in Punjab in connection with an alleged extortion case. Several cases are pending against him in Uttar Pradesh.