Malegaon Blasts: BJP MP Pragya Singh Thakur withdraws discharge plea from Bombay High Court

Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) Member of Parliament Pragya Singh Thakur today withdrew her plea filed in the Bombay High Court seeking discharge from the 2008 Malegaon Blasts case. .The appeal filed through Advocate Prashant Maggu in 2018 challenged an order of the Special Court under the National Investigation Agency (NIA) Act rejecting Thakur's discharge application. Thakur had sought for discharge claiming that the prosecution had failed to obtain proper sanction, considering she was a sitting Member of Parliament. .On November 28, a Division Bench of Justices AS Gadkari and PD Naik, which was hearing the pleas filed by co-accused Lt Col Prasad Purohit, asked the accused why the Court should now hear the discharge pleas when more than 200 witnesses had already been examined.In view of these statements, Thakur's lawyers had sought for time to take instructions.Today, the lawyers sought liberty to withdraw the petition, which the Bench granted.Along with Thakur, another accused Sameer Kulkarni also withdrew his discharge application..Purohit, on the contrary, did not withdraw his discharge application. The Bench was hearing multiple petitions filed by Purohit challenging various orders of the special court. In an earlier hearing, the Bench opined that the issues in Purohit's pleas seemed to be overlapping.The appeal challenged an order of the lower court rejecting his discharge application on the ground that the Centre had not taken proper sanction to prosecute a serving army officer. The writ petition which the Court was hearing today also challenged the action of the National Investigation Agency (NIA) to charge him under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA) without prior sanction of the Central government as per Section 197 of the Code of Criminal Procedure. And the final writ petition challenged an order of the special NIA court taking cognizance of the chargesheet filed by the Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS). The overlapping issue in all petitions was whether NIA had procured prior sanction from the Central government or not, which only the NIA could answer..The Bench asked Purohit to withdraw petitions and preferably keep only one petition pending. On Thursday, Purohit's counsel Neela Gokhale informed the Court that NIA was planning on bringing the sanctioning officer for examination as a witness. Since the officer could be cross-examined during trial, she submitted that she was withdrawing the plea alleging that the cognizance taken by the Special Court was without obtaining the requisite sanction from the government.Accordingly, the Court granted leave to withdraw this plea.