Ahmedabad: The Gujarat high court on Tuesday acquitted Mumbai businessman Birju Salla by quashing the conviction order issued by the special National Investigation Agency (NIA) court in connection with aircraft grounding case.
The NIA court had previously found him guilty and sentenced him to life imprisonment under the amended anti-hijacking law.
Salla spent seven years behind bars for his alleged mischief of placing a threat note in the flight's toilet in order to impress his girlfriend to return to him.
By quashing the NIA court's June 2019 verdict, the bench of Justice A S Supehia and Justice M R Mengdey ordered a refund of the heavy penalty imposed on Salla if he has paid it. The HC has also ordered the passengers to return the amount of compensation. After pronouncing the order, the judges told Salla's lawyer, Hardik Modh, that the case was truly a "mind-bender".
Salla was held guilty by NIA court under the amended Anti-Hijacking Act, 2016 for planting a hijack-threat letter in a lavatory of a Mumbai-Delhi Jet Airways flight in October 2017. The letter said that hijackers were on board and that the aircraft would be “flown straight to PoK”. It warned that “people would die” if efforts were made to land the aircraft elsewhere and added that a bomb had been planted in the cargo area. The flight then made an emergency landing in Ahmedabad, where Salla was booked for his mischief.
Initially, Gujarat Police claimed that Salla’s hoax call was meant to influence his girlfriend, who was employed with Jet Airways and was living in Delhi. It was aimed at impacting the airline’s prospects so that Salla’s girlfriend, with whom he reportedly secretly married in 2017, would return to Mumbai and he could have enjoyed her company more often.
However, there was no discussion during the trial on part of the National Investigation Agency (NIA) about the motive behind Salla’s gesture. However, the special NIA court said that there was enough evidence to record Salla’s guilt and punished him with life term, as this is the minimum punishment prescribed in the amended anti-hijacking law.
08/08/2023 Saeed Khan/Times of India
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