Malegaon Blasts: Victim’s Father Challenges HC Order Granting Bail To Pragya Singh Thakur [Read Petition]

A Special Leave Petition has been filed in Supreme Court challenging the Bombay High Court Judgment granting  bail to Pragya Singh Chandrapal Singh Thakur alias Sadhvi alias Swami Purnchet Anand Giri, an accused in the 2008 Malegaon Blasts.

The petition filed by Nisar Ahmed Haji Sayed Bilal, father of one of the blast victims submitted that the Impugned Judgment is erroneous, bad and liable to be set aside being contrary to law and material on record.

The Petitioner submitted that the High Court committed a grave error in coming to a conclusion that applicability of MCOCA in its entirety was excluded by Supreme  Court vide its Judgment entitled as “Prasad ShrikantPurohit Vs. State of Maharashtra &Anr.” reported in (2015) 7 SCC 440. According to him, the Supreme Court only restricted the applicability of Section 21(4)(b) of the MCOCA when deciding the Bail Applications of Accused in the Malegaon blasts.

“..the High Court failed to understand that the connection with previous incidents (cognizable offences) in respect of which cognizance has been taken is only a requirement for an offence under Section 3(1) of the MCOCA. It is submitted without prejudice that the High Court was bound to consider the material available on record to determine the involvement/complicity of inter alia the Respondent No.2 for other MCOCA offences that do not have the same pre-requisite conditions such as an offence under Section 3(2).

 It is also submitted that the High Court failed to appreciate that the Supplementary Charge-sheet of NIA effectively negated the judgment passed by this Hon’ble Court on 15.04.2015 upholding the invocation of MCOCA. It is submitted that the NIA did not invoke any further/fresh material discovered by it during investigation to justify the dropping of MCOCA. It is submitted that the features that have been cited by the NIA to justify the exclusion of MCOCA include those that were urged before Supreme  Court by counsel for Accused Persons in the proceedings leading to judgment dated 15.04.2015.

“High Court failed to appreciate that the report of the NIA is an abuse of investigative powers and a blatant attempt at belittling the rule of law and the majesty of this Court. It is submitted that the report of the NIA is an opinion to seeks to negate the cognizance taken by Courts under MCOCA as also multiple orders denying bail to several Accused Persons wherein the applicability of MCOCA has been established”.

 According to the petitioner, the High Court failed to appreciated that instead of independently investigating the matter, the approach adopted by the NIA was only to contradict and negate the investigation conducted by the ATS by opposing and/or diluting the same.

“Inexplicably, witnesses already examined whose statements under Section 161 and Section 164 CrPC had been recorded were now re-examined in order to better their versions (approximately seven years after the incident). That all this was done due to stands taken by the Accused during interrogation by the NIA is further inexplicable. It appears that the investigation by NIA is clearly motivated and a planned exercise in deconstructing a Prosecution case that had meticulously been investigated and was pending adjudication before a Court of Law”.

 The petitioner submitted that the report of the NIA also calls in to question the conduct of various Judicial Officers who recorded statements under Section 164 CrPC after satisfying itself after satisfying themselves about the voluntariness of the statements and effectively cast aspersions on the entire exercise undertaken in Court.

It is also averred that the High Court erred in adopting a contradictory approach between deciding the Bail Application of co-accused No.9 i.e. Lt. Colonel Purohit and deciding Bail Application of Sadhvi Pragya, on common issues such as time spent in custody, danger of enlarging Accused Persons in the backdrop of Witnesses retracting from their previous statements, gravity and seriousness of the offence.