The Kerala High Court (HC) granted bail to Swapna Suresh and seven other people in the gold smuggling case registered against them by the National Investigation Agency (NIA) under the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA).
The case
- Last year, customs authorities intercepted a shipment of 30 kilogrammes of gold being smuggled via diplomatic parcels at Thiruvananthapuram airport, which was scheduled to be delivered to the UAE Consulate-General in the state capital. A multi-agency investigation revealed Suresh as the lynchpin of the smuggling operation.
Snowball effect
- Suresh is a former executive secretary at the UAE Consulate and was accused of forging documents from the consulate and smuggle gold under the guise of diplomatic immunity. Suresh’s arrest also brought into focus her association with former principal secretary to the Kerala CM and IT secretary M Sivasankar, as she had worked as a contract staff with the state government’s flagship Space Park project.
Why bail now
- Suresh had contended that an offence of gold smuggling can not attract charges under UAPA. This was upheld by a division bench of the HC in February earlier this year, which said that the mere act of gold smuggling, which was covered under the Customs Act, can not be considered a “terrorist act” under UAPA unless the smuggling was carried out with the ‘intention to threaten the economic security of the nation.’
- The division bench judgement, which led to bail being granted to 12 accused in the gold smuggling case, was upheld by the Supreme Court as well which denied an appeal by the NIA seeking cancellation of the bail after the Rajasthan HC, in a similar case, denied bail to a person accused of gold smuggling and charged under UAPA