Delhi court grants bail to Khurram Parvez and Irfan Mehraj in NIA’s NGO funding case

The order comes weeks after Khurram Parvez secured bail in a separate NIA case, though both men remain subject to legal formalities before release.

A Delhi court on Saturday granted bail to Kashmiri human rights defender Khurram Parvez and journalist-researcher Irfan Mehraj in a National Investigation Agency case alleging terror funding through a non-governmental organisation.

Additional Sessions Judge Pittambur Dutt of the Patiala House Courts granted bail in the case registered as RC-37/2020, commonly referred to by the NIA as the “NGO terror funding case.”

The order marks the latest legal relief for Parvez and Mehraj, who have been in custody for several years.

Their release, however, will depend on the completion of court formalities and compliance with bail conditions.

The NIA named Parvez as the first accused, Mehraj as the second and Ghulam Hassan Bana, whom the agency says is based in Pakistan, as the third accused.

According to the agency, the Jammu and Kashmir Coalition of Civil Society (JKCCS), where Parvez served as programme coordinator and Mehraj worked as a researcher, “received foreign funding that was channelled to the banned militant outfit Hizbul Mujahideen under the guise of human rights work.”

Both Parvez and Mehraj have denied the allegations through their lawyers.

Parvez was arrested by the NIA in November 2021 under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act on allegations that included terror funding, facilitating militant recruitment and mobilising protests during the 2016 unrest in Jammu and Kashmir.

Mehraj was arrested in the same case in March 2023.

The bail order comes just over a month after the Delhi High Court granted Parvez bail in a separate NIA case.

In that ruling, the court cited his prolonged incarceration, the slow pace of the trial and his disability as grounds for granting relief despite the stringent bail provisions of the UAPA.

In the separate case, the NIA alleged Parvez was part of a conspiracy linked to the banned Lashkar-e-Taiba and had gathered information about Indian Army movements near the Line of Control.

Parvez denied the allegations, saying the material formed part of his documentation of alleged human rights violations, including enforced disappearances, torture, illegal detentions and extrajudicial killings.

The NIA also cited Parvez’s meetings with Hizbul Mujahideen chief Syed Salahuddin in 2007 and 2015 as evidence of alleged links with the group.

Parvez has maintained the meetings were conducted using valid travel documents as part of humanitarian efforts to encourage armed groups to abide by the Geneva Conventions and were a matter of public record.

Founded in 2000, the JKCCS was one of Kashmir’s best-known human rights organisations, documenting alleged human rights violations and advocating for victims of enforced disappearances, custodial violence and extrajudicial killings.

The prosecution alleges the organisation’s activities served as a cover for terrorist funding, while Parvez and Mehraj maintain their work was solely focused on documenting abuses and advocating for victims.

The case comes against the backdrop of continued scrutiny of the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA), under which thousands of people have been booked across India.

According to National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) data cited by the Supreme Court earlier this year, conviction rates under the law ranged between about 1.5% and 4% nationally from 2019 to 2023, while Jammu and Kashmir recorded conviction rates of less than 1% throughout the same period.

The court noted that the data raised concerns about lengthy pretrial detention despite relatively few convictions.

Referring to those figures while granting bail in a separate UAPA case in May, the Supreme Court observed that prolonged incarceration cannot become a substitute for punishment before guilt is established.

The bench said that “the process itself should not become the punishment” and reiterated that the constitutional right to a speedy trial continues to apply even in cases prosecuted under the UAPA.