The Supreme Court annulled the first information report (FIR) filed against former Assistant Solicitor General (ASG) and Senior Advocate IH Syed for extortion, unlawful confinement, and other offences. [IH Syed v. Gujarat State]
A bench of Justices AS Bopanna and Prashant Kumar Mishra also vacated the 2 June 2022 order of the Gujarat High Court refusing to dismiss the complaint.
Upon examining the affidavit presented to it, the supreme court determined that the complainant took Syed’s name due to a misunderstanding. After realising his error, he decided to drop the complaint against the senior attorney.
“Therefore, if this additional aspect of the matter is considered and the High Court’s order is taken into account, we are of the opinion that, under the current facts and circumstances, the FIR filed against the appellant in this case is not appropriate and further action is unnecessary. Therefore, the prayer should be approved in its current form. “Therefore, the challenged order is vacated,” the highest court ruled.
In May of last year, an additional sessions court denied Syed’s request for parole. The Gujarat High Court had refused to dismiss the complaint on June 2.
Syed subsequently filed an application with the High Court anticipating his arrest for extortion, criminal conspiracy, unlawful assembly, disturbance, voluntarily causing harm, intentional insult, criminal intimidation, and unlawful confinement.
The High Court had granted Syed anticipatory bail on June 13 of last year, observing that the case appeared to have been initiated with the intent to harm or humiliate him, especially since he was a soft target.
According to the prosecution, Syed and the other defendants compelled the informant to sign an agreement that was against his own interests, and when he refused, they assaulted him.
In addition, the informant’s family was allegedly threatened, and he was allegedly intimidated with the threat of a phoney rape case.
Syed was represented by Senior Counsel Huzefa Ahmedi and Counsel Devvrat, Abid Ali Beeran P, Aniq Kadri, and Sarath S Janardhanan.
Respondent was represented by attorneys Swati Ghildiyal, Deepanwita Priyanka, Devyani Bhatt, and Ishaan George.
