A man kidnapped for ransom. The court asked: Is this 'organised crime'?

He was accused of kidnapping a man from a restaurant, demanding Rs 20 lakh, and threatening him with a knife. The police called it organised crime. He said: 'Not enough cases.' The Supreme Court said — the law is not a numbers game.

The knife came out in a Nagpur restaurant in May 2020. Five men surrounded a victim, demanded Rs 20 lakh, and threatened to kill him. They also demanded property papers. The victim escaped. The police filed Crime No. 251/2020 at Sadar Police Station. But this was not an ordinary kidnapping case. The police invoked MCOCA — the Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act, 1999 — a law that allows confessions made to police officers to be used as evidence, and makes bail nearly impossible.

To use MCOCA, the police had to prove that Abhishek was part of an 'organised crime syndicate' engaged in 'continuing unlawful activity' for 'pecuniary benefit' (financial gain). They pointed to his alleged links with a gang leader named Roshan Sheikh. They cited multiple prior criminal cases against him. On June 2, 2020, the Additional Commissioner of Police (Crime), Nagpur, granted approval under Section 23(1)(a) MCOCA to investigate. On November 5, 2020, the ADGP and Commissioner of Police, Nagpur, granted sanction for prosecution under Section 23(2) MCOCA (the formal permission needed to file a charge-sheet under the Act).

When the absconder surfaced

By October 2020, Abhishek had been declared an absconder — a person who cannot be found by the police — under Section 82 of the CrPC (a court order that says 'this person is hiding from the law'). But he eventually surfaced to challenge the sanction order before the Bombay High Court, Nagpur Bench. His argument was simple: the threshold requirements for MCOCA were not met.

MCOCA defines 'organised crime' under Section 2(1)(e) as any continuing unlawful activity by an individual, singly or jointly, as a member of an organised crime syndicate, using violence or threat of violence or intimidation or coercion or other unlawful means, with the objective of gaining pecuniary benefits or undue economic or other advantage. 'Continuing unlawful activity' under Section 2(1)(d) requires at least two charge-sheeted cases (cases where a formal charge-sheet has been filed in court) involving allegations of violence for pecuniary benefit, committed within the preceding ten years.

Abhishek argued that the police had not shown two such charge-sheeted cases against him. He said the sanction order was mechanically passed — that the officer had not applied his mind to the specific requirements of the law. The High Court disagreed and dismissed his writ petition on December 16, 2021.

The Supreme Court bench and the 'OR' that changed everything

When the case reached the Supreme Court, Abhishek's counsel pressed the same argument: the definitional thresholds under MCOCA were not satisfied. The appellant tried to read Section 2(1)(e) as requiring both violence AND pecuniary benefit — conjunctively, not alternatively. The State countered that the appellant was an absconder, that the sanction order was valid, and that the basic requirements were clearly met.

The bench of Justice Dinesh Maheshwari had to decide a narrow but significant question: how strictly must MCOCA's provisions be construed? The appellant relied on a line of Supreme Court precedents — State of Maharashtra v. Lalit Somdatta Nagpal (2007) and Ranjitsing Brahmajeetsing Sharma v. State of Maharashtra (2005) — which held that MCOCA, being a harsh law, must be strictly construed. But the court had to decide what 'strict construction' actually means in practice.

The Supreme Court began by clarifying a crucial point: strict construction does not mean making the statute unworkable. The rule of strict construction, the court said, cannot be applied so impractically as to render the statute nugatory or defeat its purpose. The rule is not intended to put provisions in a tight iron cast making them unworkable.

On the appellant's attempt to read Section 2(1)(e) as requiring both violence AND pecuniary benefit, the court was clear: the provision uses the word 'OR' — violence OR threat of violence OR intimidation OR coercion OR other unlawful means, with the objective of pecuniary benefits OR undue economic or other advantage. The appellant's conjunctive reading misreads the provision. A single act of violence for financial gain can qualify as organised crime if the other conditions — particularly the 'continuing unlawful activity' requirement — are satisfied.

The court also held that a sanction order under Section 23(2) MCOCA must be read in its entirety. Satisfaction cannot be judged based on truncated portions. If the order as a whole demonstrates application of mind to statutory requirements, it is valid.

THE PLAY: When challenging an MCOCA sanction, attack the factual basis — not the wording of the order.

The court ended where it began: with a knife, a ransom, and a question about how many cases make a gang. The answer: one is enough — if the law's conditions are met.