The Supreme Court of India, in a reportable judgment delivered on 21 September 2026, held that a second extension of time granted to investigators to file a charge sheet under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, 1967 (UAPA) was lawful, and reversed a Bombay High Court order that had granted the accused default bail. A Bench of Justice Prashant Kumar Mishra and Justice Shree Chandrashekhar allowed the State of Maharashtra's appeal in State of Maharashtra v. Momin Moiuddin Gulam Hasan @ Moin Mistri.
Background
An FIR was registered on 21 September 2022 by the Anti-Terrorism Squad, Mumbai, against several persons including the respondents, alleging offences under Sections 120B, 121A and 153A of the Indian Penal Code, 1860 and Section 13(1)(b) of the UAPA in connection with alleged anti-national propaganda and a plan to disrupt India's sovereignty. The respondents were arrested on 22 September 2022. With the 90-day investigation period expiring on 20 December 2022, the Special Judge granted the prosecution a first extension of 30 days on grounds that included retrieval of electronic data from the Forensic Science Laboratory (FSL) and the need to obtain sanction from the appropriate government. A second extension application, seeking 15 more days, was allowed on 18 January 2023, citing pending voice-sample verification and bank-account analysis.
The respondents challenged both extension orders before the Bombay High Court, which held that the second extension was illegal because it was sought only to await sanction for prosecution — which, the High Court held, cannot justify extending the investigation period — and that the respondents had therefore acquired an indefeasible right to default bail on 19 January 2023. The State appealed to the Supreme Court.
Key holdings
1. A single phrase cannot be read out of context to declare an investigation complete. The High Court had relied on the prosecution's statement in the second extension application that "there is enough evidence to file a charge sheet against the accused" to conclude the investigation was finished. The Supreme Court rejected this: "A sentence in an order or a judgment cannot be lifted out of its context... A statement made on behalf of the prosecution that there is sufficient material for filing the charge sheet cannot be interpreted by the Court as if the investigation in the case was complete."
2. Sanction is required for cognizance, not for filing the charge sheet. The Court reaffirmed, citing Judgebir Singh @ Jasbir Singh Samra v. National Investigation Agency, (2023) 17 SCC 48, that "[t]he process of obtaining sanction is a separate process and any delay in obtaining sanction for prosecution shall not invalidate the final report", because "the embargo is on taking cognizance and not on filing a charge sheet" under Section 45 of the UAPA read with Section 196 CrPC.
3. Courts cannot curtail the police's discretion over the scope of investigation. The Court held: "The investigation of a crime is the exclusive domain of the police. It is not the jurisdiction of the Court to decide when the investigation in a case should stop." It found that analysis of forensic data recovered from mobile phones, laptops and other seized devices, and verification of bank accounts said to show foreign donations, were legitimate, ongoing components of the investigation that justified further time under Section 43D(2)(b) of the UAPA, which permits extension up to 180 days where the court is satisfied with the Public Prosecutor's report on the progress of investigation.
4. The High Court's interference was "palpably wrong". The Court held that "the discussion whether extension of time can be granted to the prosecution for filing the charge sheet on the ground of obtaining sanction... as if the investigation was complete... was off-route", and that the High Court's decision to set aside the second extension order "is palpably wrong and liable to be set aside".
5. Disposition. The Court set aside the Bombay High Court's judgment of 15 July 2024, restored the Special Judge's order of 18 January 2023 as "legal and valid", and dismissed the respondents' default bail application. It directed that "[t]he respondent No. 1 shall surrender within 30 days and may pray for regular bail, if so advised."
Implications for practitioners
The judgment sharpens the line between two questions that UAPA litigation frequently conflates: whether the investigation is complete, and whether the charge sheet drafting and sanction process is complete. Defence counsel challenging an extension order should now focus on demonstrating, from the extension application's own text read as a whole, that no further investigative step — forensic analysis, financial tracing, or additional evidence collection — remains pending, rather than isolating a single favourable sentence about "sufficient evidence".
For prosecutors, the ruling confirms that a request for extension may legitimately combine two grounds — pending forensic or financial analysis, and awaiting sanction — without the sanction ground alone being treated as fatal, provided the application does not concede that all investigative work is finished. Extension applications should therefore be drafted to specify, with dates, precisely which investigative steps remain outstanding, since the Court's reasoning turned heavily on the prosecution's stated grounds (voice-sample verification, bank-statement analysis) rather than on sanction alone.
The distinction the Court drew between sanction-for-cognizance and completion-of-investigation also has drafting implications beyond UAPA: it applies equally under other special statutes carrying a sanction requirement, such as the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988. Counsel should audit extension applications under any such statute for the same conflation the Bombay High Court fell into — and, where representing an accused, test whether the prosecution's own pleadings admit that the investigation, as distinct from the sanction process, was in fact complete.