In a striking procedural confrontation at the intersection of anti-terror law and property rights, the Jammu & Kashmir High Court was recently called upon to decide whether a registered owner of a vehicle, allegedly used for transporting arms and ammunition by an accused Over Ground Worker operating under UAPA, could reclaim custody of that vehicle through the courts, even after voluntarily parting with its possession. The case raises a pointed question about the limits of registered ownership when a vehicle becomes entangled in militancy-related offences under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, 1967, and whether a claimant who has already transferred possession can walk back into court and demand its return when the arrangement turns inconvenient.
The controversy began on January 22, 2022, when security forces apprehended one Fareed Ahmed Chouhan, an alleged Over Ground Worker, during an anti-militancy operation in Kupwara, recovering a Chinese pistol, magazine, rounds and a mobile phone from his person. The net widened dramatically the following year, when a search of the accused's residence yielded a haul of arms, ammunition, bayonets, compasses and, most tellingly, foreign currency notes from the United States, China, Kuwait, UAE and Afghanistan, painting a vivid picture of alleged cross-border militant financing.
During the course of the investigation, authorities also seized a Tata Nexon bearing registration JK09C-1586, which the accused was allegedly using for transporting illegal weapons. It was at this point that the Appellant, the vehicle's registered owner, stepped forward before the Special Court (Kupwara), claiming she had executed a Power of Attorney in favour of the accused on July 08, 2021, handed over possession of the vehicle for a sale consideration of Rs. 12,10,000, and was still owed a balance amount. With the accused now behind bars, she argued, the vehicle ought to be returned to her as the registered owner. The Trial Court was unmoved, dismissing the application on the ground that the Appellant had already parted with possession and therefore had no locus to reclaim it, a finding the Appellant chose to challenge before the High Court.
A bench of the J&K High Court, on examining the record, found the Appellant's conduct far more troubling than a mere procedural misstep. The Court noted with particular concern that the Appellant had taken contradictory positions, simultaneously claiming entitlement to the vehicle as registered owner while distancing herself from its alleged use in arms transportation, and had twice failed to produce the original Power of Attorney despite specific Court directions on October 08 and November 10, 2025, falsely representing that the documents had already been placed before the Court. The bench found the entire appeal riddled with suppression and misstatement, observing that "the Appellant has approached the Court with unclean hands, rather she has made misrepresentation and also taken contradictory and prevaricated stand, that defeats her claim to the custody of the vehicle in question."
The Court further held that having accepted the sale consideration and parted with possession, the Appellant could not "reclaim the possession of the vehicle under the garb of Court orders, when neither the vehicle is seized from her possession nor she is the owner of the vehicle in the strict legal sense", concluding that the appeal was a transparent ploy engineered to secure the vehicle's release through the registered owner as a proxy for the incarcerated accused. The Court additionally sounded a formal caution to the prosecution, noting that no confiscation proceedings under Chapter V of the UAPA had yet been initiated despite the vehicle allegedly being purchased from proceeds of terrorism, directing that a copy of the order be forwarded to the SSP, Kupwara for compliance.
Accordingly, the appeal was dismissed as misconceived, along with all connected applications.
Case Title: Rubeena Begum Vs. Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir and Anr
Case No.: CrlA (D) No. 42/2024
Coram: Hon’ble Ms. Justice Sindhu Sharma, Hon’ble Mr. Justice Shahzad Azeem
Advocate for the Appellant: Adv. T. A. Lone
Advocate for the Respondent: Assisting Counsel. Maha Majeed
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