Bombay HC junks PIL alleging deliberate victimisation
The Bombay high court on Friday dismissed a bunch of PILs alleging fabrication of evidence in three bomb blast cases and seeking a probe by an independent panel headed by a retired judge of high court
The Bombay high court on Friday dismissed a bunch of PILs alleging fabrication of evidence in three bomb blast cases and seeking a probe by an independent panel headed by a retired judge of high court.
The division bench of Justice Abhay S. Oka and Justice Amjad Sayed was hearing a PIL filed by journalist Ashish Khetan through former minority commission chairman Munaf Hakim. Advocate Firoz Ansari also intervened supporting the PIL saying youths belonging to minority community were deliberately and unnecessarily being victimised by arraigning them in false and serious offences.
The petition sought probe in three cases – July 11, 2006 serial train blasts in Mumbai, Malegaon blasts in 2006 and German Bakery blast in 2010 in Pune.
The petition has raised questions on the investigations done in Pune’s German Bakery blast case, in which Himayat Baig was convicted and was awarded death sentence. However, the high court later acquitted him from the charge triggering the bomb blast and convicted him only for possession of explosives while commuting his death sentence to life imprisonment.
The petitioner also claimed that members of Indian Mujahideen have already taken responsibilities for blasts between 2003 and 2008 across India and there was contradiction in the inquiry of investigation agencies in respect of Mumbai serial blasts in local trains and the wrong set of accused had been arrested. The petition was filed in 2013 and went before four different benches before it was finally decided on Friday.
According to the petition, the nine Muslims accused in Malegaon 2006 blast case were also wrongly arrested — though the trial court recently discharged them.
Special public prosecutor Raja Thakre had opposed the petitions saying it was frivolous and allegations against the investigation agencies were baseless.
The high court said it was dismissing the petition because the cases were pending in appellate courts (high court and Supreme Court) and hence the matter was sub-judice.