Malegaon Blasts – Sadhvi Pragya’s Bail Challenged in Supreme Court, NIA’s Role Assailed

On 25 April this year, the Bombay High Court had granted bail to Sadhvi Pragya Thakur, one of the principal accused in the Malegaon blasts case..However, Nisar Ahmed Haji Sayed Bilal, a resident of Malegaon has challenged this ruling in the Supreme Court by way of a Special Leave Petition drafted and filed by Ejaz Maqbool & Company..The Special Leave Petition mainly challenges the vires of the National Investigation Agency’s (NIA) Supplementary Charge Sheet dated May 13, 2016 in which the agency gave a clean chit to the accused and stated that charges under the Maharashtra Control of Organised Crimes Act (MCOCA) should not be levied against her..The petitioner has contended that the Maharashtra ATS (Anti – Terrorism Squad) had carried out a rigorous investigation in the case and recorded the statements of witnesses and prosecution witnesses under Sections 161 and 164 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, but the NIA, after interrogating them after a gap of seven years, only seeks to negate the testimonies already submitted before a court of law. It is the petitioner’s contention that this re-investigation after such a long period was designed so that they could improve upon what they had testified earlier, and is aimed at derailing the course of investigation and justice..Further, the petitioner has submitted that by taking into account the retracted statements of the witnesses (after a prolonged period), the NIA is casting aspersions on the judicial officers who meticulously recorded them after having duly convinced themselves of the voluntariness of the same..The SLP contends that the High Court erred in taking at face value the contents of the Supplementary Charge Sheet without independently evaluating the material on record..He has also pointed out that the mere fact that a confession has been retracted doesn’t take away its evidentiary value, and the later contradictions in the testimony pertaining to the role of the Sadhvi in attending meetings prior-to and post the attacks show that the co-accused witness was under the tutelage of NIA officers who were bent upon seeing to it that the Sadhvi got the court’s leniency..It is the petitioner’s case that in letting off the Sadhvi, the Bombay High Court overlooked the exhaustive body of evidence which pointed to her being one of the key conspirators of the carnage that left scores of Muslims dead and maimed..By ignoring the time lag of several years between their confessions to the court and their subsequent (coached) testimonies before the NIA, the High Court’s decision has resulted in a grave miscarriage of justice, the petition claims. It also urges the apex court to cancel the bail of Sadhvi Pragya because of the pivotal role she played in the criminal conspiracy leading to the blasts..Read the charge sheet here:

Malegaon Blasts – Sadhvi Pragya’s Bail Challenged in Supreme Court, NIA’s Role Assailed

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