Truncated copies as per the law: NIA

Mumbai: The prosecution in the 2008 Malegaon blast case on Thursday filed its written reply to the application made by accused Lt. Col. Prasad Purohit, seeking untruncated copies of statements of witnesses and other documents, before the special NIA court. The NIA in its reply has justified supplying truncated copies to accused.

Special public prosecutor Avinash Rasal on Thursday submitted a written reply before NIA judge V.S. Padalkar. According to the prosecution, the copies provided to the accused are in accordance with law.

The judge has now po-sted the matter for hearing on November 19. The lawyers would argue on if the accuse are entitled to receive untruncated copies. These are the documents on which prosecution would rely upon during the trial.

Col. Purohit in his app-lication, filed earlier this week, has claimed that by supplying copies in truncated form the prosecution has deprived hi-m of his statutory rights to prepare for cross exa-mination of witnesses.