Gujarat High Court released Mumbai businessman of skyjacking charges after NIA court sentenced him to life

The Gujarat High Court on Tuesday acquitted Mumbai-based businessman Birju Salla, who was earlier found guilty of planting a hijack threat letter on Mumbai Delhi flight in 2017.

Setting aside a special NIA court’s 2019 verdict, sentencing Salla to life imprisonment, a high court division bench directed that the properties seized be released and the fine imposed on him by the trial court be refunded.

The high court held that the accused could not have been convicted for the offence of hijacking “on the premise of evidence which is tainted with doubt”.On June 11, 2019, an Ahmedabad NIA court held Salla guilty of all the charges framed under the Anti-Hijacking Act, 2016, and awarded him “life imprisonment for the remainder of his life”.

Salla’s conviction under the Act was the first such conviction after the Act was amended and made stringent in 2016. He had allegedly planted a hoax hijack note in the flight’s bathroom and the NIA claimed that it was in the hope that it would force Jet Airways to close its Delhi operation and Salla’s girlfriend, who worked in the airline’s Delhi office, would come back to Mumbai.

The note had led to an emergency landing of the flight in Ahmedabad. The NIA court also imposed a fine of Rs 5 crore, of which Salla was directed to pay Rs 1 lakh each to the pilot and co-pilot of the Mumbai Delhi Jet Airways 9W339 flight as compensation, a compensation of Rs 50,000 to be paid to two crew members who were functioning in the business class of the flight (where Salla was seated) and Rs 25,000 each to the 115 passengers who were aboard the flight.

The division bench of Justices A S Supehia and M R Mengedey, while overturning his conviction and allowing Salla’s appeal against his conviction by the trial court, also set aside the fine imposed by the trial court and directed that the amount of Rs 5 crore be refunded to Salla, in case it is paid.