SC grants anticipatory bail to Umar Ansari in evacuee property case

The Supreme Court (SC) on Monday (July 17) granted anticipatory bail to jailed gangster-turned-politician Mukhtar Ansari’s son Umar Ansari in a case of evacuee property – i.e. property left behind by people who migrated to Pakistan during India’s independence.

Justices AS Bopanna and MM Sundresh of the apex court issued notice to the Uttar Pradesh government on Umar’s plea challenging an April 13 order of the Allahabad High Court.

The high court had dismissed Umar’s plea for anticipatory bail. It had also dismissed a plea of Mukhtar Ansari’s other son, Abbas Ansari, a SBSP MLA seeking quashing of the chargesheet in the same case.

It was pleaded in the court on behalf of the Ansari brothers that mutation of the property was in the name of their forefathers before their birth and hence no offence was made out against them.

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The state counsel opposed the plea, arguing that the brothers had also forged the signature of their grandmother.

The FIR in the case was lodged by revenue officer Surjan Lal at the Hazratganj police station in Lucknow on August 27, 2020, alleging that Mukhtar Ansari and his sons had usurped evacuee property by forging documents.

The evacuee property is generally allotted to those who migrated to India from Pakistan during the sub-continent’s partition.

(With agency inputs)