What is the hurry? Supreme Court on Maharashtra's request for early listing of 7/11 Mumbai blasts appeal

The Supreme Court on Wednesday questioned the Maharashtra government’s urgency in requesting an early listing of its appeal against the recent Bombay High Court judgment that had acquitted all 12 accused in the train blasts case of 2006..The matter was mentioned before the Bench of Chief Justice of India BR Gavai and Justices K Vinod Chandran and Joymalya Bagchi, shortly before the Court rose for the day."See, what is the hurry? Eight are already released. Stay of acquittal is granted only in the rarest of rare cases," the Court remarked..Counsel for the State submitted that although the Court had earlier agreed to list the matter this week, the Registry flagged a procedural defect in the appeal around 3 PM on Tuesday. “The bench was pleased to list it tomorrow. But this defect has just been notified now. So just in case the matter doesn’t come up due to the Registry process, we are mentioning this as a measure of abundant caution,” the counsel said.When the Court questioned the hurry and remarked that stay on acquittals is rarely granted, the counsel said,“Perhaps we can convince your Lordships that this is indeed rarest of rare.”.This is the second request for early hearing of the appeal after Solicitor General Tushar Mehta made a similar one on Tuesday..The case pertains to the serial bomb blasts that occurred on July 11, 2006, in which seven bombs exploded in suburban trains on Mumbai’s Western Railway line, killing 187 people and injuring more than 800.Following a prolonged trial under the Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act (MCOCA), the special court in October 2015 sentenced five of the accused to death and seven to life imprisonment.The five who got the death penalty included Kamal Ansari, Mohammad Faisal Ataur Rahman Shaikh, Ehtesham Qutubuddin Siddiqui, Naveed Hussain Khan and Asif Khan. All were held guilty of planting the bombs. Ansari died in 2021 due to COVID-19 while lodged in a Nagpur prison.The seven accused sentenced to life imprisonment by the trial court were Tanveer Ahmed Ansari, Mohammed Majid Shafi, Shaikh Mohammed Ali Alam, Mohammed Sajid Margub Ansari, Muzzammil Ataur Rahman Shaikh, Suhail Mehmood Shaikh and Zameer Ahmed Latifur Rehman Shaikh.The convicts then filed appeals against their convictions and sentences. In accordance with Section 366 of the Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC), the trial court also made a reference to the High Court for confirmation of the death sentences. The High Court, however, ended up acquitting all eleven accused.Nine of them have been released. Mohammad Faisal Ataur Rahman Shaikh and Naveed Hussain have not been released, as they have other pending cases against them..The Bench of Justices Anil Kilor and Shyam Chandak on Monday acquitted all accused while observing that "the prosecution utterly failed in establishing the case beyond reasonable doubts".The Court described the investigation and trial process as fraught with serious irregularities and observed that the prosecution’s case gave the public a “misleading sense of resolution” while “the true threat remains at large.”The High Court found the statements of nearly all prosecution witnesses unreliable. According to the Court, there was no reason for the taxi drivers or people in the train to remember the accused after almost 100 days of the blast.It added that the recovery of evidence such as bombs, guns, maps etc was immaterial and not important to the case, as the prosecution failed to identify the type of the bomb used for the blasts.