New Delhi. The Supreme Court has issued 7 guidelines to prevent any innocent from being implicated in the case of illegal gathering. Justice JB Pardiwala and Justice R. Mahadevan’s bench said on Tuesday that a person’s presence at the scene does not prove that it is part of an illegal crowd. The Supreme Court said that until it is proved that the person concerned understands the purpose of the crowd and supported him, he cannot be convicted. The Supreme Court bench also said that the prosecution would have to prove directly or in some way that the accused participated in the illegal gathering and participated in fulfilling the motives.
The court, while taking this decision, also ordered the release of 12 convicts of a similar incident in 1988 in a village in Bihar. All of them were accused of illegal gathering and murder. The Supreme Court said that when many people are accused and this is not clear in the documents, the court should investigate the evidence in depth. The Supreme Court said that in Section 149 of the IPC, it has been written that if a person in the illegal meeting (gathering of five or more people) commit crime for fulfillment of a common objective or he knows that such a crime can happen, then every person present in that meeting will be convicted at that time.
A bench of Justice Pardiwala and Justice Mahadevan said that a person present in an illegal meeting does not make him a part of it. Until it is proved that he supported or believed the objective of the meeting. The court said that without any particular role, an ordinary viewer cannot be brought under the purview of Section 149 of the IPC. The important decision of the Supreme Court will provide relief to all those who are arrested in the name of illegal gathering, who become part of the crowd committing crime only because of curiosity.
