Question arises over who will sentence Andrabi in UAPA case

AHebdomad after a new delhi margaret court convicted Kashmiri separationist leader Aasiya Andrabi and ii of her associates under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA), the case has entered an unusual legal limbo --not on its merits, but over which judge is legally competent to decide their punishment.The uncertainty surfaced during a hearing last Friday before special judge (NIA) Prashant Sharma at the Patiala House Courts, when the court noted that the conviction judgment was delivered by his predecessor, Chanderjit Singh, who has since been transferred as district judge to the Karkardooma Courts and does not hold the power as an NIA judge anymore. The question now is whether Singh can hear arguments on the quantum of sentence, or whether the matter must be decided afresh by the designated NIA court.The conundrum arises from a Delhi High Court order dated July 15, 2025, which lays down mandatory protocols for judges who are transferred after reserving judgments. Under the guidelines, a judge who has reserved judgment is duty-bound to pronounce it within two to three weeks of transfer, and the matter cannot be listed for re-hearing before the successor court.In the Andrabi case, Singh -- then special judge (NIA) at Patiala House -- reserved judgment on September 9, 2025 and was transferred on November 18 that year. He eventually delivered the 286-page conviction ruling after his transfer, prompting the successor court to flag questions about the proper forum for the sentencing hearing.During Friday’s proceedings, Sharma recorded that while the judgment was pronounced by Singh, the file was being sent back to the Patiala House NIA court to hear arguments on sentencing, even as the prosecution sought time to address the threshold issue of which court should conduct those arguments at all.The National Investigation Agency (NIA) told the court that it needed time to make submissions specifically on which court should pass the order on sentence in the case. Accepting the request, Sharma adjourned the matter to February 2.In the meantime, the court directed the jail superintendent to submit the nominal rolls of the convicts, including details of their criminal antecedents, conduct in prison, and financial capacity to pay fines imposed at the time of conviction, which is a routine step before sentencing, but one now shadowed by the unresolved jurisdictional question.Senior advocate and noted criminal lawyer Sidharth Luthra explained that while procedural law expects continuity between trial and sentencing, statutory limits under the NIA Act complicate matters. “Section 258 of the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita (BNSS) contemplates that sentencing should ordinarily be done by the same judge who heard the entire case,” Luthra said. “However, an order on sentence cannot be passed by a judge who does not have powers under the NIA Act,” he told HT.Luthra added that only a judge specifically empowered under the NIA Act and presiding over a designated special court can hear and decide sentencing. “If the judge who delivered the judgment is no longer clothed with those powers by a specific notification, the matter necessarily reverts to the special court.”On January 14, a Delhi court convicted Andrabi, who is the founder of the banned all-women separatist outfit Dukhtaran-e-Millat (DeM), along with Sofi Fehmeeda and Nahida Nasreen, holding that they had run a terrorist organisation aimed at secession of Jammu and Kashmir from India.Singh found that the accused had no allegiance to the Indian Constitution and were unwilling to uphold the sovereignty and integrity of the country. It noted that they had used various media platforms to spread insurrectionary propaganda and hate speech endangering national security.Andrabi and her associates were arrested by NIA in 2018 for allegedly running a terrorist organisation and using various media platforms to spread insurrectionary propaganda and hate speech threatening India’s integrity, security and sovereignty.