The Gujarat High Court on Tuesday acquitted Mumbai-based businessman Birju Kumar Salla who was sentenced to life imprisonment in 2019 for triggering a hijack scare on a Mumbai-Delhi flight. A division bench of justices A.S. Supehia and M.R. Mangdey, while overturning the conviction, ruled that the accused could not have been convicted for hijacking “on the premise of evidence which is tainted with doubt”.
It also directed that a fine of Rs 5 crore imposed by the trial court be refunded to him. Salla was arrested on October 30, 2017, for causing a scare on the Mumbai-Delhi Jet Airways flight by allegedly planting a hoax hijack note in its toilet. The note written in English and Urdu and kept in the tissue paper box stated that ‘‘there were hijackers on board the aircraft and explosives, too”.
The prank went awry and acquired frightening overtones, forcing the flight into unscheduled emergency landing at Ahmedabad. The businessman’s arrest and subsequent investigations revealed that he had done so in the fond hope that it would lead to the closure of the airlines Delhi operation and the return of his lady-friend back to Mumbai.
The investigations initially carried out by the local police were subsequently taken over by the NIA. On June 11, 2019, the Ahmedabad NIA court found him guilty and he was awarded “life imprisonment for the remainder of his life”. Birju Kumar was the first person to be convicted after the Antihijacking Act was amended in 2016 and made more stringent. He was also the first person to figure in the ‘national no-fly list’.
The NIA court had also fined Birju Rs 5 crore which was to be distributed among the crew and the passengers. The pilot and copilot were to be given Rs one lakh each, the flight attendants Rs 50,000 each and each of the 116 passengers on board, Rs 25,000 each.
According to Hardik Modh, the businessman’s advocate, the High Court order on Tuesday directed the flight staff of the time to refund the compensation; in this context, the ‘‘state can pay the amount which it can recover from the crew members. It also directed prompt release of all properties confiscated and seized under the Act”.
