Mumbai: The Bombay High Court has concluded hearing in the death confirmation petition by the State government and appeals by the convicts in the 2006 Mumbai train bombings,
A special bench of Justices Anil Kilor and Shyam Chandak has now scheduled the matter for January 31, when the bench will inform the counsels if it has any queries. Otherwise, the bench will close the matter for judgment. The bench has also directed defence advocate Yug Chaudhari to file written submissions summarizing his arguments.
About The Case
The special bench was constituted last year after Etheshaam Siddiqui, one of the convicts facing the death penalty, filed an application in the High Court seeking early hearing and disposal of the appeals. The case has remained pending since 2015, with hearings delayed by 11 different benches.
Special Public Prosecutor Raja urged the court to confirm the death penalty imposed by the special court submitting that this was a rarest of rare case.
Several senior lawyers, including former Chief Justice of the Orissa high court S Muralidhar; former Justice of Kerala high court and now senior Advocate S Nagamuthu; and advocate Yug Choudhari argued for the convicts challenging their conviction and sentence. Muralidhar, appearing for two convicts who have been sentenced to life in prison, had argued that they are innocent and have been languishing in jail for 18 years. He also alleged communal bias and investigative lapses in such terror-related cases.
On July 11, 2006, RDX blasts at seven locations on the suburban rail network of Mumbai in a span of 11 minutes had claimed 189 lives and injured 827 commuters.
Initially, seven different FIRs were registered at local police stations. Considering the gravity of the offence, the case was transferred to the State Anti Terrorism Squad (ATS) the same month.
While 13 accused were arrested, 15 people were shown as wanted, some of them allegedly in Pakistan. One of the accused died while planting the bomb in the train and the other was shot dead in an encounter. The ATS, invoked the MCOCA and Unlawful Activities Prevention Act, and the chargesheet was filed in November 2006.
There were 192 prosecution witnesses and 51 defence witnesses and two court witnesses. As it was not possible to get all injured witnesses to court, the prosecution submitted 252 affidavits of the injured witnesses.
In 2015, the trial court had convicted 12 persons. Five were sentenced to death, while seven were given life imprisonment. The state’s appeal for confirmation of the death penalties is mandatory under the law.
