New Delhi: Clandestine or hidden funding of extremism is one of the gravest threats to national security in present times, Karnataka High Court ruled Thursday while dismissing a plea by six people associated with a US-based Christian missionary organisation.
The petitioners had sought to quash the UAPA case against them, for allegedly using foreign-issued debit cards to withdraw huge sums of money.
In doing so, a bench of Justice M. Nagaprasanna also rejected the pleas of the six including Micah Marc, R. Jonathan Sushil, Ajit Mathai, and three others, which sought quashing of an FIR relating to forgery, criminal conspiracy, cheating, and tampering of evidence.
The accused, associated with Timothy Initiative, a US-based evangelical organisation, had approached the court saying Karnataka government and Directorate of Enforcement erroneously invoked Sections 13, 17 and 18 of Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act against them.
Essentially, these provisions relate to punishment for advocating, abetting, advising, inciting commission of any unlawful or terrorist activity, and raising funds for terrorist activities.
The main question before the court in this case was if the ED’s investigation could be stopped on the basis of the agency lacking authority to communicate information about the crime to the Director General of Police, Karnataka, on 6 May, this year.
After analysing the communication sent by ED to the DGP, the court said it was detailed and narrated the modus operandi of the accused, flow of foreign funds, and the manner in which these funds were allegedly channelled into Left-Wing Extremism-affected regions, for activities like ‘preaching, training and brainwashing of poor people’.
Relying on Section 66 of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act, 2002, the court said the provision allows the Director or authorised authorities to share information for necessary action with other agencies. “The statutory architecture is clear: the provision is intended to ensure that information uncovered in the course of investigation under one enactment does not remain siloed where it reveals infractions under another,” the court said.
In its 32-page ruling, the court also rejected the argument that such communication is permissible only in relation to offences strictly under PMLA. “Statutory interpretation cannot be so myopic as to defeat the plain purpose of the enactment,” it ruled.
Adding, “At this stage, the court is not called upon to return findings of guilt; it is required only to examine whether prima facie material exists to justify investigation.”
The Karnataka High Court also said that it was only limiting its findings in the present judgment (1 July) to the topic of whether the investigation should continue. Since the present case dealt with the topic of national security, the court said that it is the “invisible architecture upon which the sovereignty, stability and constitutional order of a nation rest”.
“One of the gravest threats to national security in the present times is, the clandestine funding of extremism. Funding, therefore, becomes the oxygen that enables extremist movements to survive and proliferate. The danger of extremist financing lies not merely in the money transferred, but in the consequences it unleashes,” the court noted.
It added that, if left unchecked, such funding can transform ideological extremism into organised violence, threatening national unity and public safety.
The court also said that the preservation of national security demands “robust vigilance against financial channels that sustain extremism”. It went on to add that intelligence gathering, strict regulatory oversight, inter-agency coordination, and rigorous enforcement of anti-money laundering is needed to dismantle these covert networks.
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What the case was about
The case arose when one of the accused in this case, Micah Marc, was intercepted at the Kempegowda airport in Bengaluru with 24 foreign debit cards. The prosecution alleged that he frequently travelled abroad, and on each return brought multiple debit cards with him.
Subsequently, the ED carried out search and seizure operations in April, this year, for suspected violations under the Foreign Exchange Management Act (FEMA).
Following this, the ED carried out search and seizure operations and said it unearthed a network of financial operations linked to US-based Timothy Initiative, which was behind the withdrawal of sums ranging from Rs 40 crore to Rs 92.55 crore, in the past two years.
The cards were issued under the “deceptively generic” name Santosh Kumar, with a view to shroud the identities of actual users, and circumvent the KYC procedure, the prosecution alleged while arguing that Ajit oversaw the financial operations of the US-based entity, while Jonathan, the other accused, supervised the overall operations.
Significantly, ED alleged that the entire operation actually involved as many as 9,000 debit cards, of which 24 were found in possession of Marc. It added that these funds were used to fund Left-Wing Extremism in Karnataka, Chhattisgarh, and Jharkhand. The ED also told the court that it was crucial for the investigation to proceed as this was only the “tip of iceberg”, and the case related to acts against the nation.
(Edited by Amrtansh Arora)
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