Mumbai, September 18 (IANS) Bombay High Court on Thursday issued notice to all the seven acquitted people, including former BJP MP Sadhvi Pragya Singh Thakur, NIA and Maharashtra Government in the 2008 Malegaon blast case.
A bench of Chief Justice Shri Chandrashekhar and Justice Gautam Ankhad, while hearing an appeal to acquit, sought response from the prosecution agency, National Investigation Agency (NIA), and the Maharashtra government within six weeks.
Those acquitted have also been asked to file their reactions for the appeal within six weeks.
Families of six people killed in the bomb blast have challenged the Special NIA court’s 31 July verdict, claiming that the trial court allowed “a shortage prosecution” to benefit the accused.
Leveling the allegations of diluting the case, the appeal slammed the NIA for a substandard investigation after handling the case from the Anti-State Anti-State Terrorism Squad (ATS).
The petitioners claimed that (blast) direct evidence was not available in this case due to privacy while planning a conspiracy.
Appeal filed by Advocate Maten Sheikh and appeal filed by Nisar Ahmed Syed Bilal and five others on 31 July sought the decision of Special NIA Judge AK Lahoti.
Those freed by the trial court included Pragya Thakur, Lieutenant Colonel Prasad Purohit, Major (retired) Ramesh Upadhyay, Ajay Raheerkar, Sudhakar Dwivedi, Sudhakar Chaturvedi and Sameer Kulkarni.
The explosion killed six people on September 29, 2008 and 101 injured in Malegaon, a communally sensitive city in Maharashtra, when a bomb exploded near a motorcycle near a mosque during the holy month of Ramadan.
On Wednesday, the appellant’s counsel informed the court that only two of the six petitioners were investigated as prosecution witnesses.
The lawyer’s response followed the court’s indication on Tuesday that the option of filing an appeal against the trial court’s acquitted verdict was not “open gate” for all, stating that only those witnesses who were investigated by the prosecution during the trial were eligible to do so.
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RCH/SKP