Supreme Court grants interim bail to UP MLA Abbas Ansari in gangster Act case
The Supreme Court on Friday granted six-week interim bail to Uttar Pradesh MLA Abbas Ansari -- son of late gangster Mukhtar Ansari -- in a case under the state's Gangsters Act.
A Bench of Justice Surya Kant and Justice N Kotiswar Singh, however, directed him to stay in his official accommodation in Lucknow and seek prior permission from authorities before visiting his constituency in Mau. It also asked him not to leave UP without its prior permission and informing the police authorities a day before appearing in different courts in cases against him.
Friday’s order would pave the way for Ansari's release from Kasganj Jail as he was already on bail in all other criminal cases lodged against him. He was arrested in other criminal cases on November 4, 2022 and under the gangsters Act on September 6, 2024.
Ansari would be released from jail subject to furnishing bail bonds in a Chitrakoot sessions court, it said.
It restrained Ansari from speaking in public on pending cases and asked the state police to file a status report in six weeks on compliance of bail conditions by the accused MLA.
The order came after senior advocate Kapil Sibal submitted on behalf of Ansari that the high court had quashed the FIR registered against him under the Gangsters Act case last year, but granted liberty to the police to file another FIR if there was evidence against him.
“Time and again, the courts have either quashed the FIR against him or granted bail in cases registered against him. This shows the level of prosecution the state was pursuing against Ansari,” Sibal said.
Sibal said in the UP Gangsters Act case, there were no independent witnesses and only official witnesses were policemen who reiterated the story similar to the one in the FIR quashed by the high court.
“There is no question of me influencing or threatening the witnesses, who are police men in this case,” he said.
On December 18, last year, the Allahabad High Court rejected Ansari's bail plea in the case. An FIR was lodged on August 31, 2024 at Kotwali Karvi Police Station in Chitrakoot district under Section 2, 3 of UP Gangsters and Anti-Social Activities (Prevention) Act, 1986 against Ansari, Navneet Sachan, Niyaz Ansari, Faraz Khan and Shahbaz Alam Khan on allegations of extortion and assault.
