Gujarat HC Quashes FIR Against Advocate After CCTV Footage Disproves Presence at Alleged Threat Scene
Justice P. M. Raval quashed a 2019 FIR against advocate Bilal Kagazi, holding that CCTV footage collected through High Court intervention demolished the prosecution's case and co-accused confessions were inadmissible under Section 25 of the Evidence Act.
The High Court of Gujarat at Ahmedabad quashed FIR C.R.No.I–281 of 2019 registered with Rander Police Station, Surat against advocate Mohammad Bilal Gulam Rasul Kagazi. Justice P. M. Raval, sitting singly, allowed the petition filed under Section 482 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973 after finding that CCTV footage — obtained only after the High Court's intervention — showed the applicant was not present at the location where he was alleged to have threatened the complainant. The court further held that the only material linking the applicant to criminal conspiracy was a co-accused's police statement, which is inadmissible under Section 25 of the Evidence Act. The FIR, along with all consequential proceedings, stands quashed.
The FIR and the Allegations Against the Applicant
The FIR, registered on 10 December 2019, arose from an incident at the District Court premises in Surat. The complainant, Asraf @ Imtiyaz Shaikh, alleged that while he and two others were standing in the passage on the third floor of the Sessions Court, Surat, at around 10 o'clock in the morning, the applicant Bilal Kagazi approached him and threatened that if the case lodged against “us” was not withdrawn, “your picture would come to an end.”
The FIR covered three distinct parts. The first concerned this alleged threat at the court premises. The second involved a separate physical assault with weapons at Rushabh Cross Road, near a Bata showroom — an incident in which the applicant had no alleged direct role. The third part set out the background: the complainant's father had been physically assaulted six months earlier by a group including Zahir Saiyed and others, an FIR for which was pending before Kosamba Police Station. The prosecution's case was that the applicant and the co-accused had criminally conspired, and that at the applicant's instigation, the co-accused attacked the complainant, inflicting fractures on his head, hands, and legs.
The offences registered included Sections 307, 326, 325, 324, 143, 147, 148, 149, 506(2), and 120B of the Indian Penal Code, 1860.
The Applicant's Case: Alibi and Motive to Implicate
Advocates Gulammustufa M. Kapadiya and Kashyap R. Joshi appeared for the applicant. Their central submission was that the applicant was not present at the third floor of the District Court at 10 o'clock on 10 December 2019, as alleged. On 16 December 2019, within days of learning his name had surfaced in the FIR, the applicant made representations both to the Commissioner of Police, Surat City, and to the Investigating Officer at Rander Police Station, specifically requesting that CCTV footage from the court premises be collected.
The footage was not collected by the Investigating Agency on its own. It was only after the High Court's intervention in these proceedings that the agency secured the CCTV recordings. Those recordings, the applicant's counsel argued, confirmed that the applicant was not visible in the passage or balcony on the third floor at the relevant time.
The defence also pointed to the motive for false implication: the applicant was representing some of the co-accused in a case against the complainant's side. The submission was that the FIR was lodged to pressure the applicant into not representing those accused persons. Counsel added that the applicant had been wrongly implicated in a second FIR as well, and that FSL reports in that matter also did not establish his presence. The complainant himself, it was submitted, was facing four criminal cases and had been detained under the Prevention of Anti-Social Activities Act.
The State's Response: Conspiracy, Phone Records, and Tower Location
Additional Public Prosecutor Rohan Shah resisted the application. On the criminal conspiracy charge under Section 120B, the APP argued that direct evidence of conspiracy is rarely available and that the question of complicity must be tested at trial. He drew the court's attention to the charge-sheet papers, specifically the statement of a co-accused, which purportedly showed that the co-accused were called and directed to “take the complainant at task” at the applicant's instigation.
The APP also pointed to phone records showing that the applicant had spoken with co-accused Zahir Jamil Saiyed on 10 December 2019 at 13:34 hours, placing him in contact with a co-accused before the physical assault. Tower location data, the APP submitted, showed the applicant's phone was in the Rander area — where the assault took place — until 16:08 hours that day.
The APP further noted that the applicant had three prior antecedents and, being a lawyer, was well-versed with the gaps in investigation. He urged the court to decline to exercise its discretionary powers under Section 482.
How the Court Reasoned Through the Alibi and the Conspiracy Charge
Justice Raval began with the threat allegation. The CCTV footage collected during investigation, he found, falsified the complainant's claim that the applicant had threatened him at 10 o'clock in the passage on the third floor of the District Court. The very foundation of the FIR against the applicant — his presence at the court premises at that time — was demolished by the Investigating Agency's own material.
On the criminal conspiracy charge, the court acknowledged the settled principle that conspiracy is rarely proved by direct evidence and that circumstances before, during, and after the occurrence must be considered. However, it examined each piece of circumstantial material individually.
The phone call to Zahir Jamil Saiyed at 13:34 hours could not, the court held, be treated as evidence of criminal conspiracy because the applicant was representing that co-accused in a pending case. Contacting one's own client by phone does not establish a criminal agreement. The tower location data placing the applicant in Rander area until 16:08 hours was similarly insufficient on its own to prove entry into a conspiracy.
The only remaining material was the statement of a co-accused recorded by the police. Justice Raval applied the Supreme Court's ruling in P. Krishna Mohan Reddy v. State of Andhra Pradesh, reported in 2025 SCC OnLine SC 1157, which held that a police statement of an accused that amounts to a confession is per se inadmissible under Section 25 of the Evidence Act. Such a statement cannot be relied upon at the bail stage, during trial, or — by extension — to implicate a co-accused. Section 30 of the Evidence Act, which permits a court to consider a co-accused's confession against others, was therefore of no assistance to the prosecution.
With the co-accused's statement excluded, the court found that the charge-sheet contained no corroborative material pointing to the applicant's participation in the conspiracy beyond the phone call and the tower location, both of which it had already found insufficient.
Applying the Sajal Bose Four-Step Test
Justice Raval then applied the structured four-step test for quashing laid down by the Supreme Court in Sajal Bose v. State of West Bengal and Others, reported in 2026 SCC OnLine SC 525, which itself drew on Pradeep Kumar Kesarwani v. State of Uttar Pradesh, reported in 2025 SCC OnLine SC 1947. Under that test, a High Court is justified in exercising its inherent powers to quash proceedings where the material relied upon by the accused is of sterling and impeccable quality sufficient to negate the allegations, remains unrefuted or incapable of justifiable refutation by the prosecution, and where continuation of proceedings would amount to an abuse of the process of court.
The CCTV footage, the court held, met that standard. It was collected by the Investigating Agency itself and formed part of the charge-sheet. It directly contradicted the complainant's account of the threat at the court premises. The prosecution had not offered any justifiable refutation of what the footage showed.
The court was careful to note that it was not conducting a mini-trial. The exercise was undertaken, in its words,
The court concluded that the FIR, insofar as it concerned the applicant, amounted to an abuse of the process of law. The material collected by the Investigating Agency itself falsified the prosecution's case against him, and the complaint appeared designed to pressure an advocate into not representing his clients.
Order
Justice P. M. Raval allowed Criminal Misc. Application No. 211 of 2020 and quashed FIR C.R.No.I–281 of 2019 registered with Rander Police Station, Surat, along with all consequential proceedings, insofar as they pertained to the applicant Mohammad Bilal Gulam Rasul Kagazi. Rule was made absolute to that extent.
The court expressly directed that neither the Investigating Agency nor the trial court should be influenced by the observations made in the order in any investigation pending or during the trial against the remaining accused. Direct service was permitted.
The original complainant did not appear despite service of notice.